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renewed by bringing it to the library. 


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BY 


EDWARD BULWER LYTTON 


Embellished with Etchings and Photogravures 


New York 
MERRILL AND BAKER 
Publishers 


The edition of this volume is limited to 450 
numbered and 26 special lettered copies, this one 


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MERRILL AND BAKER. 


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PUBLISHERS’ NOTE. 


THE publishers desire to call attention to the fact that 
the illustrations of Pompeian ruins given in this edition 
are from actual photographs taken on the spot. 

The views in many cases were indicated by them in per- 
son in Pompeii, and were photographed especially for them 
by one of the leading photographers of Italy. They also 
take this opportunity of acknowledging their indebtedness 
to FRANKLIN W. Smita, Hsq., for his valuable assistance in 
the illustrating of this edition. 

The interiors of a Pompeian house herein given are re- 
produced from photographs of the interior of the Pompeia, 
a building erected in Saratoga, N. Y., by Mr. Smith, which 
is as nearly as possible an exact fac-simile of the house of 
Pansa as described by Bulwer. The interior is elaborately 
decorated after careful study of Pompeian literature and 
art by the well known French artist Pascal and others. 


Boston, June, 1891. 


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TO SIR WILLIAM GELL, 


ETC., ETO. 


DeEAR Sir, — In publishing a work, of which Pompeii furnishes the 
subject, I can think of no one to whom it can so fitly be dedicated as 
yourself. Your charming volumes upon the antiquities of that city have 
indissolubly connected your name with its earlier (as your residence in 
the vicinity has identified you with its more recent) associations. 


Ere you receive these volumes; I hope to be deep in the perusal of 
your forthcoming work upon ‘‘ The Topography of Rome and its Vi- 
cinity.” ‘The glance at its contents which you permitted me at Naples 
sufficed to convince me of its interest and value; and as an Englishman, 
and as one who has loitered under the Portico, I rejoice to think that, 
in adding largely to your own reputation, you will also renovate our 
country’s claim to eminence in those departments of learning in which 
of late years we have but feebly supported our ancient reputation. 
Venturing thus a prediction of the success of your work, it would be 
a little superfluous to express a wish for the accomplishment of the 
prophecy! But I may add a more general hope, that you will long have 
leisure and inclination for those literary pursuits to which you bring an 
erudition so extensive; and that they may continue, as now, some- 
times to beguile you from yourself, and never to divert you from your 


friends. 
I have the honor to be, dear sir, very faithfully yours, 


THE AUTHOR. 
LEAMINGTON, 
September 21, 1834. 


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PREFACE 


TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1834. 


ON visiting those disinterred remains of an ancient city 
which, more perhaps than either the delicious breeze or the 
cloudless sun, the violet valleys and orange-groves of the 
South, attract the traveller to the neighborhood of Naples ; 
on viewing, still fresh and vivid, the houses, the streets, the 
temples, the theatres, of a place existing in the haughtiest 
age of the Roman Empire, —it was not unnatural, perhaps, 
that a writer who had before labored, however unworthily, 
in the art to revive and to create, should feel a keen desire 
to people once more those deserted streets, to repair those 
graceful ruins, to reanimate the bones which were yet 
spared to his survey, to traverse the gulf of eighteen cen- 
turies, and to wake to a second existence —the City of the 
Dead! 

And the reader will easily imagine how sensibly this 
desire grew upon one whose task was undertaken in the 
immediate neighborhood of Pompeii, —the sea that once 
bore her commerce, and received her fugitives, at his feet, 
and the fatal mountain of Vesuvius, still breathing forth 
smoke and fire, constantly before his eyes !4 

I was aware from the first, however, of the great difficul- 
ties with which I had to contend. To paint the manners 
and exhibit the life of the Middle Ages required the hand 
of a master genius; yet perhaps that task was slight and 


1 Nearly the whole of this work was written at Naples last winter (1832-33). 


viii PREFACE. 


easy in comparison with the attempt to portray a far earlier 
and more unfamiliar period. With the men and customs of 
the feudal time we have a natural sympathy and bond of 
alliance: those men were our own ancestors; from those 
customs we received our own; the creed of our chivalric 
fathers is still ours, their tombs yet consecrate our churches, 
the ruins of their castles yet frown over our valleys; we 
trace in their struggles for liberty and for justice our present 
institutions; and in the elements of their social state we 
behold the origin of our own. 

But with the classical age we have no household and 
familiar associations. The creed of that departed religion, 
the customs of that past civilization, present little that is 
sacred or attractive to our northern imaginations; they are 
rendered yet more trite to us by the scholastic pedantries 
which first acquainted us with their natures, and are linked 
with the recollection of studies which were imposed as a 
labor, and not cultivated as a delight. 

Yet the enterprise, though arduous, seemed to me worth 
attempting ; and in the time and the scene I have chosen, 
much may be found to arouse the curiosity of the reader, 
and enlist his interest in the descriptions of the author. It 
was the first century of our religion ; it was the most civil- 
ized period of Rome; the conduct of the story lies amidst 
places whose relics we yet trace; the catastrophe is among 
the most awful which the tragedies of ancient history pre- 
sent to our survey. 

From the ample materials before me, my endeavor has 
been to select those which would be most attractive to a 
modern reader,— the customs and superstitions least un- 
familiar to him; the shadows that, when reanimated, would 
present to him such images as, while they represented the 
past, might be least uninteresting to the speculations of the 
present. It did indeed require a greater self-control than 
the reader may at first imagine, to reject much that was 


PREFACE. ix 


most inviting in itself, but which, while it might have 
added attraction to parts of the work, would have been 
injurious to the symmetry of the whole. Thus, for instance, 
the date of my story is that of the short reign of Titus, 
when Rome was at its proudest and most gigantic eminence 
of luxury and power. It was therefore a most inviting 
temptation to the Author to conduct the characters of his 
tale, during the progress of its incidents, from Pompeii to 
Rome. What could afford such materials for description, or 
such field for the vanity of display, as that gorgeous city 
of the world, whose grandeur could lend so bright an in- 
spiration to fancy, so favorable and so solemn a dignity to 
research ? But in choosing for my subject, my catastrophe, 
the Destruction of Pompeii, it required but little insight 
into the higher principles of art to perceive that to Pompeii 
the story should be rigidly confined. 

Placed in contrast with the mighty pomp of Rome, the 
luxuries and gaud of the vivid Campanian city would have 
sunk into insignificance. Her awful fate would have seemed 
but a petty and isolated wreck in the vast seas of the im- 
perial sway, and the auxiliary I should have summoned to 
the interest of my story would only have destroyed and 
overpowered the cause it was invoked to support. I was 
therefore compelled to relinquish an episodical excursion so 
alluring in itself, and confining my story strictly to Pom- 
peii, to leave to others the honor of delineating the hollow 
but majestic civilization of Rome. 

The city whose fate supplied me with so superb and 
awful a catastrophe, supplied easily from the first survey of 
its remains the characters most suited to the subject and 
the scene: the half-Grecian colony of Hercules, mingling 
with the manners of Italy so much of the costumes of 
Hellas, suggested of itself the characters of Glaucus and 
Ione. The worship of Isis, its existent fane, with its false 
oracles unveiled, the trade of Pompeii with Alexandria, 


x PREFACE. 


the associations of the Sarnus with the Nile, called forth 
the Egyptian Arbaces, the base Calenus, and the fervent 
Apecides. The early struggles of Christianity with the 
heathen superstition suggested the creation of Olinthus; and 
the burnt fields of Campania, long celebrated for the spells 
of the sorceress, naturally produced the Saga of Vesuvius. 
For the existence of the Blind Girl, I am indebted to a 
casual conversation with a gentleman well known amongst 
the English at Naples for his general knowledge of the 
many paths of life. Speaking of the utter darkness which 
accompanied the first recorded eruption of Vesuvius, and 
the additional obstacle it presented to the escape of the 
inhabitants, he observed that the blind would be the most 
favored in such a moment, and find the easiest deliverance. 
In this remark originated the creation of Nydia. 

The characters, therefore, are the natural offspring of the 
scene and time. The incidents of the tale are equally con- 
sonant, perhaps, to the then existent society; for it is not 
only the ordinary habits of life, the feasts and the forum, 
the baths and the amphitheatre, the commonplace routine 
of the classic luxury, which we recall the past to behold; 
equally important, and more deeply interesting, are the 
passions, the crimes, the misfortunes, and reverses that 
might have chanced to the shades we thus summon to life! 
We understand any epoch of the world but ill if we do not 
examine its romance. There is as much truth in the poetry 
of life as in its prose. 

As the greatest difficulty in treating of an unfamiliar and 
distant period is to make the characters troduced “ live and 
move” before the eye of the reader, so such should doubtless 
be the first object of a work of the present description ; and 
all attempts at the display of learning should be considered 
but as means subservient to this, the main requisite of fiction. 
The first art of the Poet (the creator) is to breathe the breath 
of life into his creatures ; the next is to make their words and 


PREFACE. xi 


actions appropriate to the era in which they are to speak and 
act. This last art is, perhaps, the better effected by not 
bringing the art itself constantly before the reader; by not 
crowding the page with quotations and the margin with notes. 
The intuitive spirit which infuses antiquity into ancient 
images is perhaps the true learning which a work of this 
nature requires: without it, pedantry is offensive; with it, 
useless. No man who is thoroughly aware of what Prose 
Fiction has now become — of its dignity, of its influence, of 
the manner in which it has gradually absorbed all similar 
departments of literature, of its power in teaching as well as 
amusing — can so far forget its connection with History, with 
Philosophy, with Politics, its utter harmony with Poetry 
and obedience to Truth, as to debase its nature to the level 
of scholastic frivolities: he raises scholarship to the creative, 
and does not bow the creative to the scholastic. 

With respect to the language used by the characters intro- 
duced, I have studied carefully to avoid what has always 
seemed to me a fatal error in those who have attempted 
in modern times to introduce the beings of a classical age. 

1 What the strong common sense of Sir Walter Scott has expressed so 
well in his preface to “ Ivanhoe ”’ (1st edition). appears to me at least as appli- 
cable to a writer who draws from classical as to one who borrows from feudal 
antiquity. Let me avail myself of the words I refer to, and humbly and rev- 
erently appropriate them for the moment: “It is true that I neither can, 
nor do pretend, to the observation [observance ?| of complete accuracy even 
in matters of outward costume, much less in the more important points of 
language and manners. But the same motive which prevents my writing the 
dialogue of the piece in Anglo-Saxon, or in Norman-French [in Latin or in 
Greek], and which prohibits my sending forth this essay printed with the types 
of Caxton or Wynken de Worde [written with a reed upon five rolls of parchment, 
fastened to a cylinder, and adorned with a boss], prevents my attempting to con- 
fine myself within the limits of the period to which my story is laid. It is 
necessary, for exciting interest of any kind, that the subject assumed should 


be, as it were, translated into the manners as well as the language of the age 
we live in. 


“Tn point of justice, therefore, to the multitudes who will, I trust, devour 
this book with avidity |hem!|, I have so far explained ancient manners in 


xii PREFACE. 


Authors have mostly given to them the stilted sentences, the 
cold and didactic solemnities of language which they find in 
the more admired of the classical writers. It is an error as 
absurd to make Romans in common life talk in the periods 
of Cicero, as it would be in a novelist to endow his English 
personages with the long-drawn sentences of Johnson or 
Burke. The fault is the greater, because, while it pretends 
to learning, it betrays in reality the ignorance of just criti- 
cism ; it fatigues, it wearies, it revolts; and we have not 
the satisfaction, in yawning, to think that we yawn eruditely. 
To impart anything like fidelity to the dialogues of classic 
actors, we must beware (to use a university phrase) how we 
“cram” for the occasion! Nothing can give to a writer a 
more stiff and uneasy gait than the sudden and hasty adop- 
tion of the toga. We must bring to our task the familiarized 
knowledge of many years; the allusions, the phraseology, 
the language generally, must flow from a stream that has 
long been full ; the flowers must be transplanted from a living 
soul, and not bought secondhand at the nearest market-place. 
This advantage — which is, in fact, only that of familiarity 
with our subject —is one derived rather from accident than 
merit, and depends upon the degree in which the classics 
have entered into the education of our youth and the studies 
of our maturity. Yet, even did a writer possess the utmost 
advantage of this nature which education and study can 


modern language, and so far detailed the characters and sentiments of my 
persons, that the modern reader will not find himself, I should hope, much 
trammelled by the repulsive dryness of mere antiquity. In this, I respect- 
fully contend, I have in no respect exceeded the fair license due to the author 
of a fictitious composition. 

“Tt is true,” proceeds my authority, “that this license is confined within 
legitimate bounds; the author must introduce nothing inconsistent with the 
manners of the age.” — Preface to “ Ivanhoe.” 

I can add nothing to these judicious and discriminating remarks; they 
form the canons of true criticism, by which all fiction that portrays the 
past should be judged. 


SS ee 


PREFACE. xiii 


bestow, it might be scarcely possible so entirely to transport 
himself to an age so different from his own, but that he 
would incur some inaccuracies, some errors of inadvertence 
or forgetfulness. And when, in works upon the manners of 
the ancients — works even of the gravest character, composed 
by the profoundest scholars — some such imperfections will 
often be discovered, even by a critic in comparison but 
superficially informed, it would be far too presumptuous in 
me to hope that I have been more fortunate than men infi- 
nitely more learned, in a work in which learning is infinitely 
less required. It is for this reason that I venture to believe 
that scholars themselves will be the most lenient of my 
judges. Enough if this book, whatever its imperfections, 
should be found a portrait — unskilful, perhaps, in coloring, 
faulty in drawing, but. not altogether unfaithful to the fea- 
tures and the costume of the age which I have attempted 
to paint. May it be (what is far more important) a just 
representation of the human passions and the human heart, 
whose elements in all ages are the same! 


PREFACE 
TO THE EDITION OF 1850. 


THis work has had the good fortune to be so general a 
favorite with the Public, that the Author is spared the task 
of obtruding any comments in its vindication from adverse 
criticism. The profound scholarship of German criticism, 
which has given so minute an attention to the domestic life 
of the ancients, has sufficiently testified to the general fidelity 
with which the manners, habits, and customs of the inhabi- 
tants of Pompeii have been described in these pages. And 


xiv PREFACE. 


writing the work almost on the spot, and amidst a popula- 
tion that still preserve a strong family likeness to their 
classic forefathers, I could scarcely fail to catch something 
of those living colors which mere book-study alone would 
not have sufficed to bestow. It is, I suspect, to this acci- 
dental advantage that this work is principally indebted for 
a greater popularity than has hitherto attended the attempts 
of scholars to create an interest, by fictitious narrative, in the 
manners and persons of a classic age. Perhaps, too, the 
writers I allude to, and of whose labors I would speak with 
the highest respect, did not sufficiently remember that in 
works of imagination the description of manners, however 
important as an accessory, must still be subordinate to the 
vital elements of interest ; namely, plot, character, and passion. 
And in reviving the ancient shadows they have rather sought 
occasion to display erudition than to show how the human 
heart beats the same, whether under the Grecian tunic or 
the Roman toga. It is this, indeed, which distinguishes 
the imitators of classic learning from the classic literature 
itself. For in classic literature there is no want of move- 
ment and passion, —of all the more animated elements of 
what we now call Romance. Indeed, romance itself, as 
we take it from the Middle Ages, owes much to Grecian 
fable. Many of the adventures of knight-errantry are bor- 
rowed either from the trials of Ulysses or the achieve- 
ments of Theseus. And while Homer, yet unrestored to 
his throne among the poets, was only known to the litera- 
ture of early chivalry in a spurious or grotesque form, the 
genius of Gothic fiction was constructing many a tale for 
Northern wonder from the mutilated fragments of the divine 
old tale-teller. 

Amongst these losses of the past which we have most to 
deplore are the old novels or romances for which Miletus was 
famous. But, judging from all else of Greek literature that 
is left to us, there can be little doubt that they were well 


PREFACE. XV 


fitted to sustain the attention of lively and impatient audi- 
ences by the same arts which are necessary to the modern 
tale-teller: that they could not have failed in variety of 
incident and surprises of ingenious fancy; in the contrasts 
of character; and least of all in the delineations of the 
tender passion, which, however modified in its expression by 
differences of national habits, forms the main subject of hu- 
man interest in all the multiform varieties of fictitious narra- 
tive, — from the Chinese to the Arab, from the Arab to the 
Scandinavjian,— and which at this day animates the tale of 
many an itinerant Boccaccio, gathering his spell-bound listen- 
ers round him, on sunny evenings, by the Sicilian seas. 


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CONTENTS. 


Wook I. 

CHAPTER I. 
Page 
meoeyo Gentiomen of Pompeii .. 6 «s+ © © © 0 «8 06 « « 8 


CHAPTER II. 


The Blind Flower-Girl and the Beauty of Fashion. — The Athenian’s 
Confession. —The Reader’s Introduction to Arbaces of Egypt . . 6 


CHAPTER III. 


Parentage of Glaucus.— Description of the Houses of Pompeii. —A 


eM RLCCVOMMMEREC TGS oo! 6 ipl es wee le eel ee 6 LO 
CHAPTER IV. 
The Temple of Isis. —Its Priest. —'The Character of Arbaces develops 
itself ° e ° ° ° e ° ° e ° ° ® o A . ne os ‘ A ‘ 5 : . 36 
CHAPTER V. 


More of the Flower-Girl. — The Progress of Love. . ...... 45 


CHAPTER VI. 


The Fowler snares again the Bird that had just escaped, and sets his 
Nets for a new Victim . ., Pan sce Meith aifealitchlre abe ty suas Dip) OG 


CHAPTER VII. 


The Gay Life of the Pompeian ay — A Miniature Likeness of the 
Roman Baths obs : Mhshiteanteke oer Ua Ra MC ReeN atin ets. | Go 


CHAPTER VIIL 


Arbaces cogs his Dice with pleasure, and winstheGame ..... 75 


xvii CONTENTS. 


Wook II. 


CHAPTER I. 
Page 


“A Flash House” in Pompeii — and the Gentlemen of the Classic Ring 90 


CHAPTER II. 
Two Worthies e e e e e e ° e e e ° e . © . e a e e e e 98 


CHAPTER III. 


Glaucus makes a Purchase that afterwards costs him dear . .... 103 


CHAPTER IV. 


The Rival of Glaucus presses onward in the Race . . . « « « « ~ 109 


CHAPTER V. 
The Poor Tortoise. — New changes for Nydia . . . « « « « e « I2i1 


CHAPTER VL 
The Happy Beauty and the Blind Slave .. . . . « « 6 8 « + 127 


CHAPTER VII 
Ione entrapped. — The Mouse tries to gnaw the Net . . . - . . . 4183 


CHAPTER VIIL 
The Solitude and Soliloquy of the Egyptian. — His Character analyzed 138 


CHAPTER IX. 


What becomes of Tone in the House of Arbaces. — The First Signal of 
the Wrath ‘of the’ Dread Boe p20 00 4 re te ioe es veka 


YBook III. 


CHAPTER I. 


The Forum of the Pompeians. — The first rude Machinery by which the 
New Era of the World was wrought . ..-... 4... +: + 160 


CHAPTER IL. 
The Noonday Excursion on the Campanian Seas . .....~. . 166 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER IIL 
MDG CONnSTOPALION! ss) 6s si 8 io al is 


CHAPTER IV. 
The Stream of Love runs on, — whither? . . 


CHAPTER V, 


_ Nydia encounters Julia.— Interview of the Heathen Sister and Con- 
verted Brother. — An Athenian’s notion of Christianity 


CHAPTER VI. 
The Porter. — The Girl.— And the Gladiator. 


CHAPTER VII. 


The Dressing-Room of a Pompeian Beauty. — Important Conversation 


between Juliaand Nydia ..... . 


Xix 


185 


196 


203 


210 


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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Page 
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The Ecus and one PES pisa Op aise ii at 
The Temple of Fortune . 64 
Street of Plenty . SM gee, 


The Street of Tombs 202 


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THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


BOOK I. 


Quid sit faturum cras, fuge querere; et 
Quem Fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro 
_ Adpone; nec dulces amores 
Sperne, puer, neque tu choreas. 
Hor. lib. i. od. ix. 


The future in the morrow shun to seek; 
Each day that Fate shall give thee, count as gain; 
Nor spurn, O youth, sweet loves, 
Nor choral dance and song. 


CHAPTER I. 
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF POMPEII. 


“Ho, Diomed, well met! Do you sup with Glaucus to- 
night?” said a young man of small stature, who wore his 
tunic in those loose and effeminate folds which proved him to 
be a gentleman and a coxcomb. 

“ Alas, no! dear Clodius; he has not invited me,” replied 
Diomed, a man of portly frame and of middle age. “By 
Pollux, a scurvy trick! for they say his suppers are the best 
in Pompeii.” 

“Pretty well; though there is never enough of wine for me. 
It is not the old Greek blood that flows in his veins, for he 
pretends that wine makes him dull the next morning.” 

“There may be another reason for that thrift,” said Diomed, 
raising his brows. “ With all his conceit and extravagance he 
is not so rich, I fancy, as he affects to be, and perhaps loves 
to save his amphore better than his wit.” 


4 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


‘‘ An additional reason for supping with him while the ses- 
terces last. Next year, Diomed, we must find another Glaucus.” 

‘He is fond of the dice, too, I hear.” 

“He is fond of every pleasure; and while he likes the 
pleasure of giving suppers, we are all fond of him.” 

“Ha, ha, Clodius, that is well said! Have you ever seen 
my wine-cellars, by the bye ? ” 

“T think not, my good Diomed.” 

“Well, you must sup with me some evening; I have tolera- 
ble murenz ! in my reservoir, and I will ask Pansa the edile 
to meet you.” 

“Oh, no state with me! Persicos odi apparatus, I am easily 
contented. Well, the day wanes; I am for the baths —and 
you—” 

“To the questor—business of state—afterwards to the 
temple of Isis. Vale!” | 

“ An ostentatious, bustling, ill-bred fellow,” muttered Clo- 
dius to himself, as he sauntered slowly away. “He thinks 
with his feasts and his wine-cellars to make us forget that he 
is the son of a freedman; and so he will, when we do him 
the honor of winning his money: these rich plebeians are a 
harvest for us spendthrift nobles.” 

Thus soliloquizing, Clodius arrived in the Via Domitiana, 
which was crowded with passengers and chariots, and exhib- 
ited all that gay and animated exuberance of life and motion 
which we find at this day in the streets of Naples. 

The bells of the cars, as they rapidly glided by each other, 
jingled merrily on the ear, and Clodius, with smiles or nods, 
claimed familiar acquaintance with whatever equipage was 
most elegant or fantastic; in fact, no idler was better known 
in Pompeii. 

“What, Clodius! and how have you slept on your good for- 
tune ?” cried, in a pleasant and musical voice, a young man 
in a chariot of the most fastidious and graceful fashion. 
Upon its surface of bronze were elaborately wrought, in the 
still exquisite workmanship of Greece, reliefs of the Olympian 
games; the two horses that drew the car were of the rarest 


1 Murene,—lampreys. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 5 


breed of Parthia; their slender limbs seemed to disdain the 
ground and court the air, and yet at the slightest touch of 
the charioteer, who stood behind the young owner of the equi- 
page, they paused, motionless, as if suddenly transformed into 
stone, — lifeless, but lifelike, as one of the breathing wonders 
of Praxiteles. The owner himself was of that slender and 
beautiful symmetry from which the sculptors of Athens drew 
- their models; his Grecian origin betrayed itself in his hght 
but clustering locks and the perfect harmony of his features. 
He wore no toga, which in the time of the emperors had 
indeed ceased to be the general distinction of the Romans 
and was especially ridiculed by the pretenders to fashion, but 
his tunic glowed in the richest hues of the Tyrian dye, and 
the fibule, or buckles, by which it was fastened, sparkled with 
emeralds; around his neck was a chain of gold, which in the 
middle of his breast twisted itself into the form of a serpent’s 
head, from the mouth of which hung pendent a large signet 
ring of elaborate and most exquisite workmanship; the sleeves 
of the tunic were loose, and fringed at the hand with gold; 
and across the waist a girdle wrought in arabesque designs, 
and of the same material as the fringe, served in lieu of pock- 
ets for the receptacle of the handkerchief and the purse, the 
stilus and the tablets. 

“My dear Glaucus,” said Clodius, “I rejoice to see that 
your losses have so little affected your mien. Why, you seem 
as if you had been inspired by Apollo, and your face shines 
with happiness like a glory; any one might take you for the 
winner, and me for the loser.” 

“And what is there in the loss or gain of those dull pieces 
of metal that should change our spirit, my Clodius? By 
| Venus! while yet young, we can cover our full locks with 
chaplets ; while yet the cithara sounds on unsated ears, while 
yet the smile of Lydia or of Chloe flashes over our veins in 
which the blood runs so swiftly, so long shall we find delight 
in the sunny air, and make bald time itself but the treasurer 
of our joys. You sup with me to-night, you know.” 

“Who ever forgets the invitation of Glaucus!” 

“But which way go you now?” 


6 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Why, I thought of visiting the baths; but it wants yet an 
hour to the usual time.” 

“Well, I will dismiss my chariot and go with you. So, so, 
my Phylias,” stroking the horse nearest to him, which by a 
low neigh and with backward ears playfully acknowledged 
the courtesy; ‘a holiday for you to-day. Is he not handsome, 
Clodius ? 

“Worthy of Phoebus,” returned the noble parasite, — “or 
of Glaucus.” 


CHAPTER IL 


THE BLIND FLOWER-GIRL AND THE BEAUTY OF FASHION.— 
THE ATHENIAN’S CONFESSION, — THE READER’S INTRODUC- 
TION TO ARBACES OF EGYPT. 


TALKING lightly on a thousand matters, the two young men 
sauntered through the streets; they were now in that quarter 
which was filled with the gayest shops, their open interiors 
all and each radiant with the gaudy yet harmonious colors of 
frescos inconceivably varied in fancy and design. The spark. 
ling fountains that at every vista threw upwards their grate- 
ful spray in the summer air; the crowd of passengers, or 
rather loiterers, mostly clad in robes of the Tyrian dye; 
the gay groups collected round each more attractive shop; the 
slaves passing to and fro with buckets of bronze, cast in the 
most graceful shapes, and borne upon their heads; the country 
girls stationed at frequent intervals with baskets of blushing 
fruit, and flowers more alluring to the ancient Italians than to 
their descendants (with whom, indeed, “ late¢t anguis in herba,’ 
a disease seems lurking in every violet and rose),! the numer- 
ous haunts which fulfilled with that idle people the office of 
cafés and clubs at this day; the shops, where on shelves of 
marble were ranged the vases of wine and oil, and before 
whose thresholds, seats, protected from the sun by a purple 
awning, invited the weary to rest and the indolent to lounge, 


1 See note (a) at the end. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. T 


— made a scene of such glowing and vivacious excitement as 
might well give the Athenian spirit of Glaucus an excuse for 
its susceptibility to joy. 

“Talk to me no more of Rome,” said he to Clodius. ‘ Pleas- 
ure is too stately and ponderous in those mighty walls: even 
in the precincts of the court, even in the Golden House of 
_ Nero and the incipient glories of the palace of Titus, there is 
a certain dulness of magnificence, the eye aches, the spirit 
is wearied; besides, my Clodius, we are discontented when we 
compare the enormous luxury and wealth of others with the 
mediocrity of our own state. But here we surrender our- 
selves easily to pleasure, and we have the brilliancy of luxury 
without the lassitude of its pomp.” 

“It was from that feeling that you chose your summer 
retreat at Pompeii?” 

“Tt was; I prefer it to Baie. I grant the charms of the 
latter, but I love not the pedants who resort there, and who 
seem to weigh out their pleasures by the drachm ” 

“Yet you are fond of the learned, too; and as for poetry, 
why, your house is literally eloquent with Auschylus and 
Homer, the epic and the drama.” 

“Yes, but those Romans who mimic my Athenian ancestors 
do everything so heavily. Even in the chase they make their 
slaves carry Plato with them; and whenever the boar is lost, 
out they take their books and their papyrus, in order not to 
‘ose their time too. When the dancing-girls swim before them 

n all the blandishment of Persian manners, some drone of a 
freedman, with a face of stone, reads them a section of Cicero 
De Officiis. Unskilful pharmacists! pleasure and study are 
not elements to be thus mixed together; they must be en- 
joyed separately: the Romans lose both by this pragmatical 
affectation of refinement, and prove that they have no souls 
for either. Oh, my Clodius, how little your countrymen know 
of the true versatility of a Pericles, of the true witcheries of 
an Aspasia! It was but the other day that I paid a visit to 
Pliny ; he was sitting in his summer-house writing, while an 
unfortunate slave played on the tibia. His nephew (oh, whip 
me such philosophical coxcombs!) was reading Thucydides’ 


8 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


description of the plague, and nodding his conceited little head 
in time to the music, while his lips were repeating all the 
loathsome details of that terrible delineation. The puppy 
saw nothing incongruous in learning at the same time a ditty 
of love and a description of the plague.” 

“Why, they ave much the same thing,” said Clodius. 

“So I told him, in excuse for his coxcombry; but my 
youth stared me rebukingly in the face, without taking the 
jest, and answered that it was only the insensate ear that the 
music pleased, whereas the book (the description of the plague, 
mind you!) elevated the heart. ‘Ah!’ quoth the fat uncle, 
wheezing, ‘my boy is quite an Athenian, always mixing the 
utile with the dulce.’ O Minerva, how I laughed in my sleeve! 
While I was there, they came to tell the boy-sophist that 
his favorite freedman was just dead of a fever. ‘Inexorable 
death!’ cried he; ‘ get me my Horace. How beautifully the 
sweet poet consoles us for these misfortunes!’ Oh, can these 
men love, my Clodius? Scarcely even with the senses. How 
rarely a Roman has a heart! He is but the mechanism of 
genius, — he wants its bones and flesh.” 

Though Clodius was secretly a little sore at these remarks 
on his countrymen, he affected to sympathize with his friend, 
partly because he was by nature a parasite, and partly because 
it was the fashion among the dissolute young Romans to affect 
a little contempt for the very birth which in reality made 
them so arrogant; it was the mode to imitate the Greeks, and 
yet to laugh at their own clumsy imitation. 

Thus conversing, their steps were arrested by a crowd gath- 
ered round an open space where three streets met; and, just 
where the porticos of a light and graceful temple threw their 
shade, there stood a young girl, with a flower-basket on her 
right arm, and a small three-stringed instrument of music in 
the left hand, to whose low and soft tones she was modulating 
a wild and half-barbaric air. At every pause in the music she 
gracefully waved her flower-basket round, inviting the loiterers 
to buy; and many a sesterce was showered into the basket, 
either in compliment to the music or in compassion to the 
songstress, —for she was blind. 


ee ee ee o ad 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 9 


“Tt is my poor Thessalian,” said Glaucus, stopping; “TI 
have not seen her since my return to Pompeii. Hush! her 
voice is sweet; let us listen.” 


THE BLIND FLOWER-GIRL’S SONG. 


I. 


Buy my flowers —oh, buy, I pray! 
The blind girl comes from afar ; 
If the earth be as fair as I hear them say, 
These flowers her children are! 
Do they her beauty keep ? 
They are fresh from her lap, I know; 
For I caught them fast asleep 
In her arms an hour ago. 
With the air which is her breath — 
Her soft and delicate breath — 
Over them murmuring low! 


On their lips her sweet kiss lingers yet, 
And their cheeks with her tender tears are wet. 
For she weeps — that gentle mother weeps 
(As morn and night her watch she keeps, 
With a yearning heart and a passionate on 
To see the young things grow so fair ; 

She weeps — for love she weeps ; 

And the dews are the tears she weeps 

From the well of a mother’s love! 


II. 


Ye have a world of light, 
Where love in the loved rejoices ; 

But the blind girl’s home is the House of Night, 
And its beings are empty voices. 


As one in the realm below, 

I stand by the streams of woe! 

I hear the vain shadows glide, 

I feel their soft breath at my side, 
And I thirst the loved forms to see, 

And I stretch my fond arms around, 

And I catch but a shapeless sound, 
For the living are ghosts to me. 


10 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Come buy — come buy! 
Hark! how the sweet things sigh 
(For they have a voice like ours), 
“ The breath of the blind girl closes 
The leaves of the saddeniag roses — 
We are tender, we sons of light, 
We shrink from this child of night, 
From the grasp of the blind girl free us: 
We yearn for the eyes that see us — 
We are for night too gay, 
In your eyes we behold the day — 
Oh, buy — oh, buy the flowers! ” 


‘“T must have yon bunch of violets, sweet Nydia,” said 
Glaucus, pressing through the crowd and dropping a handful 
of small coins into the basket; ‘‘ your voice is more charming 
than ever.” 

The blind girl started forward as she heard the Athenian’s 
voice, then as suddenly paused, while the blood rushed vio- 
lently over neck, cheek, and temples. 

“So you are returned!” said she in a low voice; and then 
repeated half to herself, “ Glaucus is returned!” 

“Yes, child, I have not been at Pompeii above a few days. 
My garden wants your care, as before; you will visit it, I 
trust, to-morrow. And mind, no garlands at my house shall 
be woven by any hands but those of the pretty Nydia.” 

Nydia smiled joyously, but did not answer; and Glaucus, 
placing in his breast the violets he had selected, turned gayly 
and carelessly from the crowd. 

“So she is a sort of client of yours, this child?” said 
Clodius. 

“¢ Ay — does she not sing prettily ? She interests me, the 
poor slave! Besides, she is from the land of the Gods’ hill; 
Olympus frowned upon her cradle — she is of Thessaly.” 

“The witches’ country.” 

“True: but for my part I find every woman a witch; and 
at Pompeii, by Venus! the very air seems to have taken a 
love-philtre, so handsome does every face without a beard 
seem in my eyes.” 

“ And lo! one of the handsomest in Pompeii, old Diomed’s 


7 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 11 


daughter, the rich Julia!” said Clodius, as a young lady, her 

face covered by her veil, and attended by two female slaves, 
approached them, on her way to the baths. 

_ Fair Julia, we salute thee!” said Clodius. 

Julia partly raised her veil, so as with some coquetry to 
display a bold Roman profile, a full dark bright eye, and a 
cheek over whose natural olive art shed a fairer and softer 
rose. 

“And Glaucus, too, is returned!” said she, glancing mean- 
ingly at the Athenian. “Has he forgotten,” she added, in a 
half-whisper, “ his friends of the last year ?” 

“ Beautiful Julia! even Lethe itself, if it disappear in one 
part of the earth, rises again in another. Jupiter does not 
allow us ever to forget for more than a moment; but Venus, 
more harsh still, vouchsafes not even a moment’s oblivion.” 

“‘Glaucus is never at a loss for fair words.” 

“Who is, when the object of them is so fair?” 

“We shall see you both at my father’s villa soon,” said 
Julia, turning to Clodius. 

“We will mark the day in which we visit you with a white 
stone,” answered the gamester. 

Julia dropped her veil, but slowly, so that her last glance 
rested on the Athenian with affected timidity and real bold- 
ness; the glance bespoke tenderness and reproach. 

The friends passed on. 

“ Julia is certainly handsome,” said Glaucus. 

“ And last year you would have made that confession in a 
warmer tone.” 

“True; I was dazzled at the first sight, and mistook fora 
gem that which was but an artful imitation.” 

“ Nay,” returned Clodius, “all women are the same at heart. 
Happy he who weds a handsome face and a largedower. What 
more can he desire ?” 

Glaucus sighed. 

They were now in a street less crowded than the rest, at the 
end of which they beheld that broad and most lovely sea, which 
upon those delicious coasts seems to have renounced its pre- 
rogative of terror, —so soft are the crisping winds that hover 


12 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


around its bosom, so glowing and so various are the hues which 
it takes from the rosy clouds, so fragrant are the perfumes 
which the breezes from the land scatter over its depths. From 
such a sea might you well believe that Aphrodite rose to take 
the empire of the earth. 

“Tt is still early for the bath,” said the Greek, who was the 
creature of every poetical impulse; “let us wander from the 
crowded city, and look upon the sea while the noon yet laughs 
along its billows.” 

“With all my heart,” said Clodius; “and the bay, too, is 
always the most animated part of the city.” 

Pompeii was the miniature of the civilization of that age. 
Within the narrow compass of its walls was contained, as it 
were, a specimen of every gift which luxury offered to power. 
In its minute but glittering shops, its tiny palaces, its baths, its 
forum, its theatre, its circus, —in the energy yet corruption, in 
the refinement yet the vice, of its people, you beheld a model 
of the whole empire. It was a toy, a plaything, a show-box, in 
which the gods seemed pleased to keep the representation of 
the great monarchy of earth, and which they afterwards hid 
from time to the wonder of posterity; the moral of the maxim 
that under the sun there is nothing new. 

Crowded in the glassy bay were the vessels of commerce and 
the gilded galleys for the pleasure of the rich citizens. The 
boats of the fishermen glided rapidly to and fro; and afar off 
you saw the tall masts of the fleet under the command of 
Pliny. Upon the shore sat a Sicilian, who, with vehement 
gestures and flexile features, was narrating to a group of fisher- 
men and peasants a strange tale of shipwrecked mariners and 
friendly dolphins, —just as at this day, in the modern neigh- 
borhood, you may hear upon the Mole of Naples. 

Drawing his comrade from the crowd, the Greek bent his 
steps towards a solitary part of the beach, and the two friends, 
seated on a small crag which rose amidst the smooth pebbles, 
inhaled the voluptuous and cooling breeze, which, dancing over 
the waters, kept music with its invisible feet. There was, per- 
haps, something in the scene that invited them to silence and 
reverie. Clodius, shading his eyes from the burning sky, was 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 18 


calculating the’gains of the last week; and the Greek, leaning 
upon his hand, and shrinking not from that sun, — his nation’s 
tutelary deity, — with whose fluent light of poesy and joy and 
love his own veins were filled, gazed upon the broad expanse, 
and envied, perhaps, every wind that bent its pinions towards 
the shores of Greece. 

“Tell me, Clodius,” said the Greek at last, “hast thou ever 
_ been in love?” 

‘Yes, very often.” 

‘He who has loved often,” answered Glaucus, “has loved 
never. ‘There is but one Eros, though there are many counter- 
feits of him.” 

“The counterfeits are not bad little gods, upon the whore 
answered Clodius. 

“T agree with you,” returned the Greek. “I adore even the 
shadow of Love; but I adore himself yet more.” 

“ Art thou, then, soberly and earnestly in love? Hast thou 
that feeling which the poets describe, —a feeling that makes us 
neglect our suppers, forswear the theatre, and write elegies ? 
I should never have thought it. You dissemble well.” 

“T am not far gone enough for that,” returned Glaucus, 
smiling, “or rather I say with Tibullus, — 


‘He whom Love rules, where’er his path may be, 
Walks safe and sacred.’ 


In fact, I am not in love; but I could be if there were but 
occasion to see the object. Eros would light his torch, but the 
priests have given him no oil.” 

“Shall I guess the object? Is it not Diomed’s daughter ? 
She adores you, and does not affect to conceal it; and, by 
Hercules! I say again and again, she is both handsome and 
rich. She will bind the door-posts of her husband with golden 
fillets.” 

“No, I do not desire to sell myself. Diomed’s daughter is 
handsome, I grant; and at one time, had she not been the 
grandchild of a freedman, I might have— Yet no—she car- 
ries all her beauty in her face; her manners are not maiden-like, 
and her mind knows no culture save that of pleasure.” 


ist 


14 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“You are ungrateful. Tell me, then, who is the fortunate 
virgin.” 

“You shall hear, my Clodius. Several months ago I was 
sojourning at Neapolis,’ a city utterly to my own heart, for it 
still retains the manners and stamp of its Grecian origin, — 
and it yet merits the name of Parthenope, from its delicious 
air and its beautiful shores. One day I entered the temple of 
Minerva, to offer up my prayers, not for myself more than for 
the city on which Pallas smiles no longer. The temple was 
empty and deserted. The recollections of Athens crowded 
fast and meltingly upon me; imagining myself still alone in 
the temple, and absorbed in the earnestness of my devotion, 
my prayer gushed from my heart to my lips, and I wept as I 
prayed. I was startled in the midst of my devotions, how- 
ever, bya deep sigh; I turned suddenly round, and just behind 
me was a female. She had raised her veil also in prayer; and 
when our eyes met, methought a celestial ray shot from those 
dark and shining orbs at once into my soul. Never, my Clo- 
dius, have I seen mortal face more exquisitely moulded: a 
certain melancholy softened and yet elevated its expression ; 
that unutterable something which springs from the soul, and 
which our sculptors have imparted to the aspect of Psyche, 
gave her beauty I know not what of divine and noble; tears 
were rolling down her eyes. I guessed at once that she was 
also of Athenian lineage, and that in my prayer for Athens 
her heart had responded to mine. I spoke to her, though with 
a faltering voice. ‘Art thou not, too, Athenian,’ said I, ‘O 
beautiful virgin?’ At the sound of my voice she blushed, and 
half drew her veil across her face. ‘My forefathers’ ashes,’ 
said she, ‘repose by the waters of Ilissus: my birth is of 
Neapolis; but my heart, as my lineage, is Athenian.’ ‘Let us, 
then,’ said I, ‘make our offerings together:’ and, as the priest 
now appeared, we stood side by side while we followed the 
priest in his ceremonial prayer; together we touched the 
knees of the goddess; together we laid our olive garlands on 
the altar. I felt a strange emotion of almost sacred tender- 
ness at this companionship. We, strangers from a far and 


1 Naples. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 15 


fallen land, stood together and alone in that temple of our 
country’s deity: was it not natural that my heart should yearn 
to my countrywoman, for so I might surely call her? I felt 
as if I had known her for years; and that simple rite seemed, 
as by a miracle, to operate on the sympathies and ties of time. 
Silently we left the temple, and I was about to ask her where 
she dwelt, and if I might be permitted to visit her, when a 
youth, in whose features there was some kindred resemblance 
to her own, and who stood upon the steps of the fane, took 
her by the hand. She turned round and bade me farewell. 
The crowd separated us: I saw her no more. On reaching 
my home I found: letters which obliged me to set out for 
Athens, for my relations threatened me with litigation con- 
cerning my inheritance. When that suit was happily over, 
I repaired once more to Neapolis; I instituted inquiries 
throughout the whole city. I could discover no clew of my 
lost countrywoman, and, hoping to lose in gayety all remem- 
brance of that beautiful apparition, I hastened to plunge my- 
self amidst the luxuries of Pompeii. This is all my history. 
I do not love, but I remember and regret.” 

As Clodius was about to reply, a slow and stately step ap- 
proached them, and at the sound it made amongst the pebbles 
each turned, and each recognized the new-comer. 

It was a man who had scarcely reached his fortieth year, of 
tall stature, and of a thin but nervous and sinewy frame. His 
skin, dark and bronzed, betrayed his Eastern origin; and his 
features had something Greek in their outline (especially in 
the chin, the lip, and the brow), save that the nose was some- 
what raised and aquiline, and the bones, hard and visible, 
forbade that fleshy and waving contour which on the Grecian 
physiognomy preserved even in manhood the round and beau- 
tiful curves of youth. His eyes, large and black as the deep- 
est night, shone with no varying and uncertain lustre; a deep, 
thoughtful, and half-melancholy calm seemed unalterably fixed 
in their majestic and commanding gaze. His step and mien 
were peculiarly sedate and lofty, and something foreign in the 
fashion and the sober hues of his sweeping garments added to 
the impressive effect of his quiet countenance and stately 


16 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


form. Each of the young men, in saluting the new-comer, 
made mechanically, and with care to conceal it from him, a 
slight gesture or sign with their fingers; for Arbaces, the 
Egyptian, was supposed to possess the fatal gift of the evil eye. 

“The scene must, indeed, be beautiful,” said Arbaces, with 
a cold though courteous smile, “ which draws the gay Clodius, 
and Glaucus the all-admired, from the crowded thoroughfares 
of the city.” 

“Ts nature ordinarily so unattractive ?” asked the Greek. 

“To the dissipated — yes.” 

“An austere reply, but scarcely a wise one. Pleasure 
delights in contrasts; it is from dissipation that we learn to 
enjoy solitude, and from solitude dissipation.” 

“So think the young philosophers of the Garden,” replied 
the Egyptian; “they mistake lassitude for meditation, and 
imagine that, because they are sated with others, they know 
the delight of loneliness. But not in such jaded bosoms can 
Nature awaken that enthusiasm which alone draws from her 
chaste reserve all her unspeakable beauty: she demands from 
you, not the exhaustion of passion, but all that fervor from 
which you only seek, in adoring her, a release. When, young 
Athenian, the moon revealed herself in visions of light to 
Endymion it was after a day passed, not amongst the feverish 
haunts of men, but on the still mountains and in the solitary 
valleys of the hunter.” 

“ Beautiful simile!” cried Glaucus; “most unjust applica- 
tion! Exhaustion! that word is for age, not youth. By me, 
at least, one moment of satiety has never been known.” 

Again the Egyptian smiled, but his smile was cold and 
blighting, and even the unimaginative Clodius froze beneath 
its light. He did not, however, reply to the passionate ex- 
clamation of Glaucus; but after a pause he said, in a soft 
and melancholy voice, — 

“ After all, you do right to enjoy the hour while it smiles 
for you; the rose soon withers, the perfume soon exhales. 
And we, O Glaucus! strangers in the land, and far from our 
fathers’ ashes, what is there left for us but pleasure or regret, 
— for you the first, perhaps for me the last!” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 17 


The bright eyes of the Greek were suddenly suffused with 
tears. “Ah, speak not, Arbaces,” he cried, — “speak not of 
our ancestors. Let us forget that there were ever other 
liberties than those of Rome! And Glory! — oh, vainly 
would we call her ghost from the fields of Marathon and 
Thermopyle !” 

Thy heart rebukes thee while thou speakest,” said the 
Keyptian; “and in thy gayeties this night thou wilt be more 
mindful of Leena! than of Lais. Vale!” 

Thus saying, he gathered his robe around him and slowly 
Swept away. 

“T breathe more freely,” said Clodius. “Imitating the 
Egyptians, we sometimes introduce a skeleton at our feasts. 
In truth, the presence of such an Egyptian as yon gliding 
shadow were spectre enough to sour the richest grape of 
the Falernian.” 

“Strange man!” said Glaucus, musingly; “yet dead though 
he seem to pleasure, and cold to the objects of the world, 
scandal belies him, or his house and his heart could tell a 
different tale.” 

*‘ Ah! there are whispers of other orgies than those of Osiris 
in his gloomy mansion. He is rich, too, they say. Can we 
not get him amongst us, and teach him the charms of dice ? 
Pleasure of pleasures! hot fever of hope and fear! inexpres- 
sible, unjaded passion! how fiercely beautiful thou art, O 
Gaming!” 

“Inspired — inspired!” cried Glaucus, laughing; “the ora- 
cle speaks poetry in Clodius. What miracle next!” 

1 Lezna, the heroic mistress of Aristogiton, when put to the torture, bit 
out her tongue, that the pain might not induce her to betray the conspiracy 


against the sons of Pisistratus. The statue of a lioness, erected in her honor, 
was to be seen at Athens in the time of Pausanias, = 


VOL. 1.— 2 


18 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


CHAPTER III. 


PARENTAGE OF GLAUCUS.— DESCRIPTION OF THE HOUSES OF 
POMPEII.— A CLASSIC REVEL. 


HEAVEN had given to Glaucus every blessing but one: it 
had given him beauty, health, fortune, genius, illustrious de- 
scent, a heart of fire, a mind of poetry; but it had denied him 
the heritage of freedom. He was born in Athens, the subject 
of Rome. Succeeding early to an ample inheritance, he had 
indulged that inclination for travel so natural to the young, 
and had drunk deep of the intoxicating draught of pleasure 
amidst the gorgeous luxuries of the imperial court. 

He was an Alcibiades without ambition. He was what a 
man of imagination, youth, fortune, and talents readily be- 
comes when you deprive him of the inspiration of glory. His 
house at Rome was the theme of the debauchees, but also of 
the lovers of art; and the sculptors of Greece delighted to task 
their skill in adorning the porticos and exedrew of an Athe- 
nian. His retreat at Pompeii, —alas! the colors are faded 
now, the walls stripped of their paintings! — its main beauty, 
its elaborate finish of grace and ornament, is gone; yet when 
first given once more to the day, what eulogies, what wonder, 
did its minute and glowing decorations create, —its paint- 
ings, its mosaics! Passionately enamoured of poetry and the 
drama, which recalled to Glaucus the wit and the heroism of 
his race, that fairy mansion was adorned with representations 
of Aischylus and Homer. And antiquaries, who resolve taste 
to a trade, have turned the patron to the professor, and still 
(though the error is now acknowledged) they style in custom, 
as they first named in mistake, the disburied house of the 
Athenian Glaucus “THE HOUSE OF THE DRAMATIC POET.” 

Previous to our description of this house, it may be as well 
to convey to the reader a general notion of the houses of 
Pompeii, which he will find to resemble strongly the plans of 
Vitruvius; but with all those differences in detail, of caprice 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 19 


and taste, which being natural to mankind have always puz- 
zled antiquaries. We shall endeavor to make this description 
as clear and unpedantic as possible. 

You enter, then, usually by a small entrance-passage (called 
vestibulum), into a hall, sometimes with (but more frequently 
without) the ornament of columns; around three sides of 
this hall are doors communicating with several bedchambers 
(among which is the porter’s), the best of these being usually 
appropriated to country visitors. At the extremity of the 
hall, on either side to the right and left, if the house is large, 
there are two small recesses, rather than chambers, generally 
devoted to the ladies of the mansion; and in the centre of the 
tessellated pavement of the hall is invariably a square, shallow 
reservoir for rain-water (classically termed impluviwm), which 
was admitted by an aperture in the roof above; the said aper- 
ture being covered at will byanawning. Near this impluvium, 
which had a peculiar sanctity in the eyes ef the ancients, were 
sometimes (but at Pompeii more rarely than at Rome) placed 
images of the household gods. ‘The hospitable hearth, often 
mentioned by the Roman poets, and consecrated to the Lares, 
was at Pompeii almost invariably formed by a movable brazier ; 
while in some corner, often the most ostentatious place, was 
deposited a huge wooden chest, ornamented and strengthened 
by bands of bronze or iron, and secured by strong hooks upon 
a stone pedestal so firmly as to defy the attempts of any 
robber to detach it from its position. It is supposed that this 
chest was the money-box, or coffer, of the master of the house; 
though as no money has been found in any of the chests 
discovered at Pompeii, it is probable that it was sometimes 
rather designed for ornament than use. 

In this hall (or atriwm, to speak classically) the clients and 
visitors of inferior rank were usually received. In the houses 
of the more “respectable,” an atriensis, or slave peculiarly 
devoted to the service of the hall, was invariably retained, 
and his rank among his fellow-slaves was high and important. 
The reservoir in the centre must have been rather a dangerous 
ornament; but the centre of the hall was like the grass-plot of 
a college, and interdicted to the passers to and fro, who found 


20 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 


ample space in the margin. Right opposite the entrance, at 
the other end of the hall, was an apartment (¢adlinwm), in 
which the pavement was usually adorned with rich mosaics, 
and the walls covered with elaborate paintings. Here were 
usually kept the records of the family, or those of any public 
office that had been filled by the owner: on one side of this 
saloon, if we may so call it, was often a dining-room, or ¢77- 
clinium ; on the other side, perhaps, what we should now term 
a cabinet of gems, containing whatever curiosities were deemed 
most rare and costly; and invariably a small passage for the 
slaves to cross to the farther parts of the house, without pass- 
ing the apartments thus mentioned. These rooms all opened 
on a square or oblong colonnade, technically termed peristyle. 
If the house was small, its boundary ceased with this colon- 
nade; and in that case its centre, however diminutive, was 
ordinarily appropriated to the purpose of a garden, and 
adorned with vases of flowers placed upon pedestals: while 
under the colonnade, to the right and left, were doors admit- 
ting to bedrooms,' to a second ¢riclinium, or eating-room (for 
the ancients generally appropriated two rooms at least to that 
purpose, one for summer, and one for winter —or, perhaps, 
one for ordinary, the other for festive, occasions); and if the 
owner affected letters, a cabinet, dignified by the name of 
library, — for a very small room was sufficient to contain the 
few rolls of papyrus which the ancients deemed a notable 
collection of books. 

At the end of the peristyle was generally the kitchen. Sup- 
posing the house was large, it did not end with the peristyle, 
and the centre thereof was not in that case a garden, but 
might be perhaps adorned with a fountain, or basin for fish; 
and at its end, exactly opposite to the tablinum, was generally 
another eating-room, on either side of which were bedrooms, 
and perhaps a picture-saloon, or pinacotheca.*, These apart- 
ments communicated again with a square or oblong space, 


1 The Romans had bedrooms appropriated not only to the sleep of night, 
but also to the day siesta (cubicula diurna). 

2 In the stately palaces of Rome, this picture-room generally communi- 
cated with the atrium. . 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETL. 21 


usually adorned on three sides with a colonnade like the peri- 
style, and very much resembling the peristyle, only usually 
longer. This was the proper viridarium, or garden, being 
commonly adorned with a fountain, or statues, and a profusion 
of gay flowers; at its extreme end was the gardener’s house; 
on either side, beneath the colonnade, were sometimes, if the 
size of the family required it, additional rooms. 

At Pompeii, a second or third story was rarely of impor- 
tance, being built only above a small part of the house, and 
containing rooms for the slaves; differing in this respect from 
the more magnificent edifices of Rome, which generally con- 
tained the principal eating-room (or cenaculum) on the second 
floor. The apartments themselves were ordinarily of small 
size; for in those delightful climes they received any extraor- 
dinary number of visitors in the peristyle (or portico), the hall, 
or the garden; and even their banquet-rooms, however elabo- 
rately adorned and carefully selected in point of aspect, were 
of diminutive proportions; for the intellectual ancients, being 
fond of society, not of crowds, rarely feasted more than nine 
at a time, so that large dinner-rooms were not so necessary 
with them as with us.!_ But the suite of rooms, seen at once 
from the entrance, must have had a very imposing effect: you 
beheld at once the hall richly paved and painted —the tabli- 
num — the graceful peristyle, and (if the house extended far- 
ther) the opposite banquet-room and the garden, which closed 
the view with some gushing fount or marble statue. 

The reader will now have a tolerable notion of the Pom- 
peian houses, which resembled in some respects the Grecian, 
but mostly the Roman fashion of domestic architecture. In 
almost every house there is some difference in detail from the 
rest, but the principal outline is the same in all. In all you 
find the hall, the tablinum, and the peristyle, communicating 
with each other; in all you find the walls richly painted; and 
in all the evidence of a people fond of the refining elegances 
of life. The purity of the taste of the Pompeians in decora- 
tion is, however, questionable: they were fond of the gaudiest 


1 When they entertained very large parties, the feast was usually served 
in the hall. 


22 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


colors, of fantastic designs ; they often painted the lower half 
of their columns a bright red, leaving the rest uncolored; 
and where the garden was small, its wall was frequently 
tinted to deceive the eye as to its extent, imitating trees, birds, 
temples, etc., in perspective—a meretricious delusion which 
the graceful pedantry of Pliny himself adopted, with a com- 
placent pride in its ingenuity. 

But the house of Glaucus was at once one of the smallest, 
and yet one of the most adorned and finished of all the pri- 
vate mansions of Pompeii: it would be a model at this day 
for the house of “a single man in Mayfair,” —the envy and 
despair of the ccelibian purchasers of buhl and marquetry. 

You enter by a long and narrow vestibule, on the floor of 
which is the image of a dog in mosaic, with the well-known 
“ Cave canem,” or, “ Beware the dog.” On either side is a 
chamber of some size; for the interior part of the house not 
being large enough to contain the two great divisions of pri- 
vate and public apartments, these two rooms were set apart 
for the reception of visitors who neither by rank nor famil- 
iarity were entitled to admission into the penetralia of the 
mansion. 

Advancing up the vestibule you enter an atrium, that 
when first discovered was rich in paintings, which in point of 
expression would scarcely disgrace a Raphael. You may 
see them now transplanted to the Neapolitan Museum ; 
they are still the admiration of connoisseurs, — they depict 
the parting of Achilles and Briseis. Who does not ac- 
knowledge the force, the vigor, the beauty employed in 
delineating the forms and faces of Achilles and the im- 
mortal slave ? 

On one side the atrium, a small staircase admitted to the 
apartments for the slaves on the second floor; there also were 
two or three small bedrooms, the walls of which portrayed the 
rape of Europa, the battle of the Amazons, etc. 

You now enter the tablinum, across which, at either end, 
hung rich draperies of Tyrian purple, half withdrawn. On 
the walls was depicted a poet reading his verses to his 


1 The tablinum was also secured at pleasure by sliding-doors. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 23 


friends; and in the pavement was inserted a small and most 
exquisite mosaic, typical of the instructions given by the 
director of the stage to his comedians. 

You passed through this saloon and entered the peristyle; 
and here (as I have said before was usually the case with the 
smaller houses of Pompeii) the mansion ended. From each 
of the seven columns that adorned this court hung festoons 
of garlands: the centre, supplying the place of a garden, 
bloomed with the rarest flowers placed in vases of white mar- 
ble, that were supported on pedestals. At the left hand of 
this small garden was a diminutive fane, resembling one of 
those small chapels placed at the side of roads in Catholic 
countries, and dedicated to the Penates; before it stood a 
bronzed tripod: to the left of the colonnade were two small 
cubicula, or bedrooms; to the right was the trichnium, in 
which the guests were now assembled. 

This room is usually termed by the antiquaries of Naples 
“The Chamber of Leda;” and in the beautiful work of Sit 
William Gell, the reader will find an engraving from that 
most delicate and graceful painting of Leda presenting her 
new-born to her husband, from which the room derives its 
name. This charming apartment opened upon the fragrant 
garden. Round the table of citrean! wood, highly polished 
and delicately wrought with silver arabesques, were placed 
the three couches, which were yet more common at Pompeii 
than the semicircular seat that had grown lately into fashion 
at Rome; and on these couches of bronze, studded with 
richer metals, were laid thick quiltings covered with elaborate 
broidery, and yielding luxuriously to the pressure. 

“Well, I must own,” said the edile Pansa, “that your 
house, though scarcely larger than a case for one’s fibule, is 
a gem of its kind. How beautifully painted is that parting 
of Achilles and Briseis! —what a style!—what heads !— 
what a—hem!” 

“Praise from Pansa is indeed valuable on such subjects,” 

1 The most valued wood,—not the modern citron-tree. My learned 


friend, Mr. W. S. Landor, conjectures it with much plausibility to have 
been mahogany. . 


24 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


said Clodius, gravely. ‘“ Why, the paintings on dis walls!— 
Ah, there is, indeed, the hand of a Zeuxis!” | 

“You flatter me, my Clodius, indeed you do,” quoth the 
eedile, who was celebrated through Pompeii for having the 
worst paintings in the world; for he was patriotic, and pat- 
ronized none but Pompeians. “You flatter me; but there is 
something pretty — Aidepol! yes —in the colors, to say noth- 
ing of the design; and then for the kitchen, my friends — 
ah! that was all my fancy.” 

“What is the design?” said Glaucus. “I have not yet 
seen your kitchen, though I have often witnessed the excel- 
lence of its cheer.” 

“A cook, my Athenian, —a cook sacrificing the trophies of 
his skill on the altar of Vesta, with a beautiful murena (taken 
from the life) on a spit at a distance; there is some inven- 
tion there !” 

At that instant the slaves appeared, bearing a tray covered 
with the first preparative initia of the feast. Amidst delicious 
figs, fresh herbs strewed with snow, anchovies, and eggs, were 
ranged small cups of diluted wine sparingly mixed with honey. 
As these were placed on the table, young slaves bore round to 
each of the five guests (for there were no more) the silver 
basin of perfumed water, and napkins edged with a purple 
fringe. But the eedile ostentatiously drew forth his own nap- 
kin, which was not, indeed, of so fine a linen, but in which 
the fringe was twice as broad, and wiped his hands with the 
parade of a man who felt he was calling for admiration. 

“ A splendid mappa that of yours,” said Clodius; “why, the 
fringe is as broad as a girdle!” 

“ A trifle, my Clodius, a trifle! They tell me this stripe is 
the latest fashion at Rome; but Glaucus attends to these 
things more than I.” 

‘Be propitious, O Bacchus!” said Glaucus, inclining rever- 
entially to a beautiful image of the god placed in the centre 
of the table, at the corners of which stood the Lares and 
the salt-holders. The guests followed the prayer, and then, 
sprinkling the wine on the table, they performed the wonted 
libation. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETIL. 25 


This over, the convivialists reclined themselves on the 
couches, and the business of the hour commenced. 

“May this cup be my last,” said the young Sallust, as the 
table, cleared of its first stimulants, was now loaded with the 
substantial part of the entertainment, and the ministering 
slave poured forth to him a brimming cyathus, — “May this 

cup be my last, but it is the best wine I have drunk at 
Pompeii !” 

“Bring hither the amphora,” said Glaucus, “and read its 
date and its character.” 

The slave hastened to inform the party that the scroll fas- 
tened to the cork betokened its birth from Chios, and its age 
a ripe fifty years. 

‘How deliciously the snow has cooled it!” said Pansa. 
“Tt is just enough.” 

‘Tt is like the experience of a man who has cooled his pleas- 
ures sufficiently to give them a double zest,” exclaimed Sallust. 

“Tt is like a woman’s ‘No,’” added Glaucus: “it cools but 
to inflame the more.” 

“When is our next wild-beast fight?” said Clodius to 
Pansa. 

“Tt stands fixed for the ninth ide of August,” answered 
Pansa: “on the day after the Vulcanalia; we have a most 
lovely young lion for the occasion.” 

“Whom shall we get for him to eat?” asked Clodius. 
“ Alas! there is a great scarcity of criminals. You must 
positively find some innocent or other to condemn to the lion, 
Pansa.” 

“Indeed, I have thought very seriously about it of late,” 
replied the edile, gravely. “It was a most infamous law, that 
which forbade us to send our own slaves to the wild beasts. 
Not to let us do what we hke with our own, that’s what I call 
an infringement on property itself.” 

“Not so in the good old days of the Republic,” sighed 
Sallust. 

“ And then this pretended mercy to the slaves is such a dis- 
appointment to the poor people. How they do love to see a 
good tough battle between a man and a lion; and all this inno- 


26 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


cent pleasure they may lose (if the gods don’t send us a good 
criminal soon) from this cursed law!” 

“What can be worse policy,” said Clodius, sententiously, 
“than to interfere with the manly amusements of the people?” 

“ Well, thank Jupiter and the Fates! we have no Nero at 
present,” said Sallust. 

“He was indeed a tyrant; he shut up our amphitheatre for 
ten years.” 

“T wonder it did not create a rebellion,” said Sallust. 

“Tt very nearly did,” returned Pansa, with his mouth full of 
wild boar. 

Here the conversation was interrupted for a moment by a 
flourish of flutes, and two slaves entered with a single dish. 

“Ah, what delicacy hast thou in store for us now, my 
Glaucus ?” cried the young Sallust, with sparkling eyes. 

Sallust was only twenty-four, but he had no pleasure in life 
like eating; perhaps he had exhausted all the others: yet 
had he some talent, and an excellent heart —as far as it went. 

“T know its face, by Pollux!” cried Pansa. “It is an Am- 
bracian kid! Ho! [snapping his fingers, a usual signal to the 
slaves] we must prepare a new libation in honor to the new- 
comer.” 

“T had hoped,” said Glaucus, in a melancholy tone, “to 
have procured you some oysters from Britain; but the winds 
that were so cruel to Cesar have forbid us the oysters.” 

“ Are they in truth so delicious ?” asked Lepidus, loosening 
to a yet more luxurious ease his ungirdled tunic. 

“Why, in truth, I suspect it is the distance that gives the 
flavor; they want the richness of the Brundusium oyster. 
But at Rome no supper is complete without them.” 

“'The poor Britons! There is some good in them after all,” 
said Sallust. “They produce an oyster.” 

“T wish they would produce us a gladiator,” said the edile, 
whose provident mind was musing over the wants of the am- 
phitheatre. 

“By Pallas!” cried Glaucus, as his favorite slave crowned 
his streaming locks with a new chaplet, “I love these wild 
spectacles well enough when beast fights beast; but when a 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 27 


man, one with bones and blood like ours, is coldly put on the 
arena, and torn limb from limb, the interest is too horrid. I 
sicken; I gasp for breath; I long to rush and defend him. 
The yells of the populace seem to me more dire than the 
voices of the Furies chasing Orestes. I rejoice that there is so 
little chance of that bloody exhibition for our next show.” 

The edile shrugged his shoulders. The young Sallust, who 
was thought the best-natured man in Pompeii, stared in sur- 
prise. The graceful Lepidus, who rarely spoke for fear of 
disturbing his features, ejaculated “Hercle!” The parasite 
Clodius muttered “ Aidepol!” and the sixth banqueter, who 
was the umbra of Clodius,! and whose duty it was to echo his 
richer friend, when he could not praise him, — the parasite of 
@ parasite, — muttered also “ Aldepol !” 

“Well, you Italians are used to these spectacles; we Greeks 
are more merciful. Ah, shade of Pindar! the rapture of a _ 
true Grecian game, the emulation of man against man, the 
generous strife, the half-mournful triumph, so proud to con- 
tend with a noble foe, so sad to see him overcome! But ye 
understand me not.” 

“The kid is excellent,” said Sallust. The slave, whose duty 
it was to carve, and who valued himself on his science, had 
just performed that office on the kid to the sound of music, his 
knife keeping time, beginning with a low tenor, and accom- 
plishing the arduous feat amidst a magnificent diapason. 

“Your cook is, of course, from Sicily ?” said Pansa. 

“Yes, of Syracuse.” 

“T will play you for ae ” said Clodius. “ We will have a 
game between the courses.’ 

“ Better that sort of game, certainly, than a beast-fight; but 
I cannot stake my Sicilian: you have nothing so precious to 
stake me in return.” 

“My Phillida, —my beautiful dancing-girl!” 

“T never buy women,” said the Greek, carelessly rearranging 
his chaplet. 

The musicians, who were stationed in the portico without, 
had commenced their office with the kid; they now directed 

1 See note (d) at the end. : 


28 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


the melody into a more soft, a more gay, yet it may be a more 
intellectual strain; and they chanted that song of Horace 
beginning “ Persicos odi,” etc., so impossible to translate, and 
which they imagined applcable to a feast that, effeminate as 
it seems to us, was simple enough for the gorgeous revelry of 
the time. We are witnessing the domestic, and not the princely 
feast, — the entertainment of a gentleman, not an emperor ora 
senator. 

“Ah, good old Horace!” said Sallust, compassionately ; 
“he sang well of feasts and girls, but not like our modern 
poets.” 

“The immortal Fulvius, for instance,” said Clodius. 

“Ah, Fulvius, the immortal!” said the umbra. 

“And Spurena; and Caius Mutius, who wrote three epics 
in a year—could Horace do that, or Virgil either?” said 
Lepidus. “Those old poets all fell into the mistake of copy- 
ing sculpture instead of painting. Simplicity and repose, — 
that was their notion; but we moderns have fire, and passion, 
and energy: we never sleep, we imitate the colors of paint- 
ing, its life, and its action. Immortal Fulvius!” 

“ By the way,” said Sallust, “have you seen the new ode by 
Spurena, in honor of our Egyptian Isis? It is magnificent, — 
the true religious fervor.” 

‘“‘Tsis seems a favorite divinity at Pompeii,” said Glaucus. 

“Yes,” said Pansa, “she is exceedingly in repute just at 
this moment; her statue has been uttering the most remark- 
able oracles. I am not superstitious, but I must confess that 
she has more than once assisted me materially in my magis- 
tracy with her advice. Her priests are so pious too; none of 
your gay, none of your proud ministers of Jupiter and For- 
tune: they walk barefoot, eat no meat, and pass the greater 
part of the night in solitary devotion!” 

“An example to our other priesthoods, indeed! Jupiter’s 
temple wants reforming sadly,” said Lepidus, who was a great 
reformer for all but himself. 

“They say that Arbaces the Egyptian has imparted some 
most solemn mysteries to the priests of Isis,’’ observed Sallust. 
“He boasts his descent from the race of Rameses, and de- 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 29 


clares that in his family the secrets of remotest antiquity are 
treasured.” 

“He certainly possesses the gift of the evil eye,” said 
Clodius. “If I ever come upon that Medusa front without 
the previous charm, I am sure to lose a favorite horse, or throw 
the canes} nine times running.” 

“The last would indeed be a miracle!” said Sallust, gravely. 

‘Flow mean you, Sallust?” returned the gamester, with a 
flushed brow. : 

“JT mean, what you would leave me if I played often with 
you; and that is — nothing.” 

Clodius answered only by a smile of disdain. 

“If Arbaces were not so rich,” said Pansa, with a stately 
air, “I should stretch my authority a little, and inquire into 
the truth of the report which calls him an astrologer and a 
sorcerer. Agrippa, when edile of Rome, banished all such 
terrible citizens. But a rich man— it is the duty of an edile 
to protect the rich!” 

“ What think you of this new sect, which I am told has even 
a few proselytes in Pompeii, these followers of the Hebrew 
God — Christus ?” 

“Oh, mere speculative visionaries,” said Clodius; “they 
have not a single gentleman amongst them; their proselytes 
are poor, insignificant, ignorant people !” 

“ Who ought, however, to be crucified for their blasphemy,” 
said Pansa, with vehemence; “they deny Venus and Jove: 
Nazarene is but another name for atheist. Let me catch them, 
that’s all!” 

The second course was gone; the feasters fell back on their 
couches ; there was a pause while they listened to the soft voices 
of the South, and the music of the Arcadian reed. Glaucus 
was the most rapt and the least inclined to break the silence, 
but Clodius began already to think that they wasted time. 

““ Bene vobis / (your health!) my Glaucus,” said he, quaffing 
a cup to each letter of the Greek’s name, with the ease of a 
practised drinker. “Will you not be avenged on your ill 
fortune of yesterday? See, the dice court us.” 


1 Canes, or Canicule, the lowest throw at dice. 


30 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETL. 


“ As you will,” said Glaucus. 

“The dice in summer, and I an edile!”? said Pansa, magis- 
terially ; “it is against all law.” 

“ Not in your presence, grave Pansa,” returned Clodius, rat- 
tling the dice in a long box; “your presence restrains all 
license; it is not the thing, but the excess of the thing, that 
hurts.” 

«What wisdom!” muttered the umbra. 

‘Well, I will look another way,” said the eedile. 

“Not yet, good Pansa; let us wait till we have supped,” 
said Glaucus. 

Clodius reluctantly yielded, concealing his vexation with a 
yawn. 

“He gapes to devour the gold,” whispered Lepidus to Sallust, 
in a quotation from the Aulularia of Plautus. 

“Ah! how well I know these polypi, who hold all they 
touch,” answered Sallust, in the same tone and out of the same 
play. 

The third course, consisting of a variety of fruits, pistachio 
nuts, sweetmeats, tarts, and confectionery tortured into a 
thousand fantastic and airy shapes, was now placed upon the 
table ; and the ministri, or attendants, also set there the wine 
(which had hitherto been handed round to the guests) in large 
jugs of glass, each bearing upon it the schedule of its age and 
quality. 

“ Taste this Lesbian, my Pansa,” said Sallust; “it is 
excellent.” 

“Tt is not very old,” said Glaucus, “but it has been made 
precocious, like ourselves, by being put to the fire: the wine 
to the flames of Vulcan; we to those of his wife, to whose 
honor I pour this cup.” 

“Tt is delicate,” said Pansa, “but there is perhaps the least 
particle too much of rosin in its flavor.” 

“What a beautiful cup!” cried Clodius, taking up one of 
transparent crystal, the handles of which were wrought with 
gems and twisted in the shape of serpents, the favorite fashion 
at Pompeii. 

1 See note (c) at the end. 


THE. LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 31 


“This ring,” said Glaucus, taking a costly jewel from the 
first joint of his finger and hanging it on the handle, “ gives it 
a richer show, and renders it less unworthy of thy acceptance, 
my Clodius, on whom may the gods bestow health and fortune, 
long and oft, to crown it to the brim!” 

“ You are too generous, Glaucus,” said the gamester, hand- 
ing the cup to his slave; “but your love gives it a double 
value.” 

“This cup to the Graces!” said Pansa, and he thrice emp- 
tied his calyx. The guests followed his example. 

“We have appointed no director to the feast,” cried Sallust. 

“Let us throw for him, then,” said Clodius, rattling the 
dice-box. 

“Nay,” cried Glaucus, “no cold and trite director for us; 
no dictator of the banquet; no rex convivii. Have not the 
Romans sworn never to obey a king? Shall we be less free 
than your ancestors? Ho, musicians! let us have the song I 
composed the other night: it has a verse on this subject, ‘ The 
Bacchie Hymn of the Hours.’ ” 

The musicians struck their instruments to a wild Ionie air, 
whilst the youngest voices in the band chanted forth, in Greek 
words, as numbers, the following strain : — 


THE EVENING HYMN OF THE HOURS. 


I. 


Through the summer day, through the weary day, 
We have glided long ; 
Ere we speed to the Night through her portals gray, 
Hail us with song! 
With song, with song, 
With a bright and joyous song ; 
Such as the Cretan maid, 
While the twilight made her bolder, 
Woke, high through the ivy shade, 
When the wine-god first consoled her. 
From the hush’d, low-breathing skies, 
Half-shut look’d their starry eyes, 
And all around, 
With a loving sound, 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


The Agean waves were creeping: 
On her lap lay the lynx’s head ; 
Wild thyme was her bridal bed; 
And aye through each tiny space, 

In the green vine’s green embrace, 
The Fauns were slyly peeping : 
The Fauns, the prying Fauns, 
The arch, the laughing Fauns, — 
The Fauns were slyly peeping! 


ats 


Flagging and faint are we 
With our ceaseless flight, 
And dull shall our journey be 
Through the realm of night. 
Bathe us, oh, bathe our weary wings, 
In the purple wave, as it freshly springs 
To your cups from the fount of light — 
From the fount of light —from the fount of light; 
For there, when the sun has gone down in night, 
There in the bowl we find him. 
The grape is the well of that summer sun, 
Or rather the stream that he gazed upon, 
‘Till he left in truth, like the Thespian youth,! 
His soul, as he gazed, behind him. 


III. 


A cup to Jove, and a cup to Love, 
And a cup to the son of Maia ; 
And honor with three, the band-zone free, 
The band of the bright Aglaia. 
But since every bud in the wreath of pleasure 
Ye owe to the sister Hours, 
No stinted cups, in a formal measure, 
The Bromian law makes ours. 
He honors us most who gives us most, 
And boasts, with a Bacchanal’s honest boast, 
He never will count the treasure. 
Fastly we fleet, then seize our wings, 
And plunge us deep in the sparkling springs ; 
And aye, as we rise with a dripping plume, 
‘We'll scatter the spray round the garland’s bloom. 
We glow — we glow. 


1 Narcissus. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 33 


Behold, as the girls of the Eastern wave 
Bore once with a shout to their crystal cave 

The prize of the Mysian Hylas, 

Even so — even so, 

We have caught the young god in our warm embrace, 
We hurry him on in our laughing race ; 
We hurry him on, with a whoop and song, 
The cloudy rivers of night along — 

Ho, ho! — we have caught thee, Psilas! 


The guests applauded loudly. When the poet is your host, 
“his verses are sure to charm. 

“Thoroughly Greek,” said Lepidus; “the wildness, force, 
and energy of that tongue it is impossible to imitate in the 
Roman poetry.” 

“Tt is, indeed, a great contrast,” said Clodius, ironically at 
heart, though not in appearance, “to the old-fashioned and 
tame simplicity of that ode of Horace which we heard before. 
The air is beautifully Ionic; the word puts me in mind of a 
toast, — Companions, I give you the beautiful Jone.” 

«Tone !—the name is Greek,” said Glaucus, in a soft voice. 
‘T drink the health with delight. But who is Ione ?” 

“Ah! you have but just come to Pompeii, or you would de- 
serve ostracism for your ignorance,” said Lepidus, conceitedly ; 
‘not to know Ione, is not to know the chief charm of our 
city.” 

“‘ She is of the most rare beauty,” said Pansa; “and what a 
voice!” 

“ She can feed only on nightingales’ tongues,” said Clodius. 

“ Nightingales’ tongues! beautiful thought!” sighed the 
umbra. 

“Enlighten me, I beseech you,” said Glaucus. 

“ Know then—” began Lepidus. 

“ Let me speak,” cried Clodius; “you drawl out your words 
as if you spoke tortoises.” 

“ And you speak stones,” muttered the coxcomb to himself, 
as he fell back disdainfully on his couch. 

“Know then, my Glaucus,” said Clodius, “that Ione is a 
stranger who has but lately come to Pompeii. She sings like 

VOL. I.—3 


o4 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Sappho, and her songs are her own composing ; and as for the 
tibia and the cithara and the lyre, 1 know not in which she 
most outdoes the Muses. Her beauty is most dazzling. Her 
house is perfect; such taste, such gems, such bronzes! She 
is rich, and generous as she is rich.” 

“ Her lovers, of course,” said Glaucus, “take care that she 
does not starve; and money lightly won is always lavishly 
spent.” 

‘Her lovers —ah, there is the enigma! Ione has but one 
vice —she is chaste. She has all Pompeii at her feet, and she 
has no lovers; she will not even marry.” 

“No lovers!” echoed Glaucus. 

“No; she has the soul of Vesta, with the girdle of Venus.” 

“ What refined expressions!” said the umbra. 

“A miracle!” cried Glaucus. “Can we not see her?” 

“ T will take you there this evening,” said Clodius; ‘ mean- 
while —” added he, once more rattling the dice. 

“JT am yours!” said the complaisant Glaucus. “ Pansa, 
turn your face !” 

Lepidus and Sallust played at odd and even, and the umbra 
looked on, while Glaucus and Clodius became gradually ab- 
sorbed in the chances of the dice. 

“By Pollux!” cried Glaucus, “this is the second time I 
have thrown the canicule ” (the lowest throw). 

“Now Venus befriend me!” said Clodius, rattling the box 
for several moments. “QO Alma Venus — itis Venus herself!” 
as he threw the highest cast, named from that goddess, — 
whom he who wins money, indeed, usually propitiates. 

“Venus is ungrateful to me,” said Glaucus, gayly; “I have 
always sacrificed on her altar.” 

“He who plays with Clodius,” whispered Lepidus, “ will 
soon, like Plautus’s Curculio, put his pallium for the stakes.” 

“Poor Glaucus! he is as blind as Fortune herself,” replied 
Sallust, in the same tone. 

“J will play no more,” said Glaucus; “I have lost thirty 
sestertia.”’ 

“JT am sorry —” began Clodius. 

* Amiable man!” groaned the umbra. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 39 


“Not at all!” exclaimed Glaucus; “the pleasure I take in 
your gain compensates the pain of my loss.” 

The conversation now grew general and animated, the wine 
circulated more freely, and Ione once more became the subject 
of eulogy to the guests of Glaucus. 

“ Instead of outwatching the stars, let us visit one at whose 
beauty the stars grow pale,” said Lepidus. 

Clodius, who saw no chance of renewing the dice, seconded 
the proposal; and Glaucus, though he civilly pressed his 
guests to continue the banquet, could not but let them see that 
his curiosity had been excited by the praises of Ione: they 
therefore resolved to adjourn (all, at least, but Pansa and the 
umbra) to the house of the fair Greek. They drank, therefore, 
to the health of Glaucus and of Titus, they performed their 
last libation, they resumed their slippers, they descended the 
stairs, passed the illumined atrium, and walking unbitten 
over the fierce dog painted on the threshold, found themselves 
beneath the light of the moon just risen, in the lively and still 
crowded streets of Pompeii. 

They passed the jewellers’ quarters, ean with lights, 
caught and reflected by the gems displayed in the shops, and 
arrived at last at the door of Ione. The vestibule blazed with 
rows of lamps; curtains of embroidered purple hung on either 
aperture of the tablinum, whose walls and mosaic pavement 
glowed with the richest colors of the artist; and under the 
portico which surrounded the odorous viridarium they found 
Jone, already surrounded by adoring and applauding guests. 

“Did you say she was Athenian?” whispered Glaucus, ere 
he passed into the peristyle. 

“No, she is from Neapolis.” 

“Neapolis!” echoed Glaucus; and at that moment the 
group, dividing on either side of Ione, gave to his view that 
bright, that nymph-like beauty which for months had shone 
down upon the waters of his memory. 


36 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE TEMPLE OF ISIS.—ITS PRIEST. —-THE CHARACTER OF 
ARBACES DEVELOPS ITSELF. 


Tue story returns to the Egyptian. We left Arbaces upon 
the shores of the noonday sea, after he had parted from Glau- 
cus and his companion. As he approached to the more 
crowded part of the bay, he paused and gazed upon that ani- 
mated scene with folded arms, and a bitter smile upon his 
dark features. 

“ Gulls, dupes, fools, that ye are!” muttered he to himself; 
‘whether business or pleasure, trade or religion, be your pur- 
suit, you are equally cheated by the passions that ye should 
rule! How I could loathe you, if I did not hate — yes, hate! 
Greek or Roman, it is from us, from the dark lore of Egypt, 
that ye have stolen the fire that gives you souls. Your 
knowledge, your poesy, your laws, your arts, your barbarous 
mastery of war (all how tame and mutilated when compared 
with the vast original!) ye have filched, as a slave filches the 
fragments of the feast, from us! And now, ye mimics of a 
mimic !— Romans, forsooth ! the mushroom herd of robbers ! — 
ye are our masters! The pyramids look down no more on the 
race of Rameses; the eagle cowers over the serpent of the 
Nile. Our masters — not mine. My soul, by the power of its 
wisdom, controls and chains you, though the fetters are un- 
seen. So long as craft can master force, so long as religion 
has a cave from which oracles can dupe mankind, the wise 
hold an empire over earth. Even from your vices Arbaces 
distils his pleasures; pleasures unprofaned by vulgar eyes; 
pleasures vast, wealthy, inexhaustible, of which your enervate 
minds, in their unimaginative sensuality, cannot conceive or 
dream! Plod on, plod on, fools of ambition and of avarice! 
your petty thirst for fasces and queestorships, and all the mum- 
mery of servile power, provokes my laughter and my scorn. 
My power can extend wherever man believes. I ride over the 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 3T 


souls that the purple veils. Thebes may fall, Egypt be a 
name; the world itself furnishes the subjects of Arbaces.” 

Thus saying, the Egyptian moved slowly on; and, entering 
the town, his tall figure towered above the crowded throng of 
the forum, and swept towards the small but graceful temple 
consecrated to Isis.? 

That edifice was then but of recent erection; the ancient 
temple had been thrown down in the earthquake sixteen years 
before, and the new building had become as much in vogue 
- with the versatile Pompeians as a new church or a new 
preacher may be with us. The oracles of the goddess at Pom- 
peli were indeed remarkable, not more for the mysterious lan- 
guage in which they were clothed, than for the credit which 
was attached to their mandates and predictions. If they were 
not dictated by a divinity, they were framed at least by a 
profound knowledge of mankind; they applied themselves ex- 
actly to the circumstances of individuals, and made a nota- 
ble contrast to the vague and loose generalities of their rival 
temples. As Arbaces now arrived at the rails which separated 
the profane from the sacred place, a crowd, composed of all 
classes, but especially of the commercial, collected, breathless 
and reverential, before the many altars which rose in the open 
court. In the walls of the cella, elevated on seven steps of 
Parian marble, various statues stood in niches, and those walls 
were ornamented with the pomegranate consecrated to Isis. 
An oblong pedestal occupied the interior building, on which 
stood two statues, one of Isis, and its companion represented 
the silent and mystic Orus. But the building contained many 
other deities to grace the court of the Egyptian deity: her 
kindred and many-titled Bacchus, and the Cyprian Venus, a 
Grecian disguise for herself, rising from her bath, and the dog- 
headed Anubis, and the ox Apis, and various Egyptian idols 
of uncouth form and unknown appellations. 

But we must not suppose that, among the cities of Magna 
Grecia, Isis was worshipped with those forms and ceremonies 
which were of right her own. The mongrel and modern na- 
tions of the South, with a mingled arrogance and ignorance, 

1 See note (d) at the end. | 


88 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


confounded the worships of all climes and ages; and the pro- 
found mysteries of the Nile were degraded by a hundred mere- 
tricious and frivolous admixtures from the creeds ef Cephisus 
and of Tiber. The temple of Isis in Pompeii was served by 
Roman and Greek priests, ignorant alike of the language and 
the customs of her ancient votaries; and the descendant of 
the dread Egyptian kings, beneath the appearance of reveren- 
tial awe, secretly laughed to scorn the puny mummeries which 
imitated the solemn and typical worship of his burning clime. 

Ranged now on either side the steps was the sacrificial 
crowd, arrayed in white garments, while at the summit stood 
two of the inferior priests, the one holding a palm-branch, the 
other a slender sheaf of corn. In the narrow passage in front 
thronged the bystanders. 

“ And what,” whispered Arbaces to one of the bystanders, 
who was a merchant engaged in the Alexandrian trade, which 
trade had probably first introduced into Pompeii the worship 
of the Egyptian goddess, — “ what occasion now assembles you 
before the altars of the venerable Isis? It seems, by the 
white robes of the group before me, that a sacrifice is to be 
rendered; and by the assembly of the priests, that ye are pre- 
pared for some oracle. To what question is it to vouchsafe a 
reply ?” 

“We are merchants,” replied the bystander (who was no 
other than Diomed) in the same voice, “ who seek to know the 
fate of our vessels, which sail for Alexandria to-morrow. We 
are about to offer up a sacrifice and implore an answer from 
the goddess. I am not one of those who have petitioned the 
priest to sacrifice, as you may see by my dress, but I have 
some interest in the success of the fleet; by Jupiter! yes. 
I have a pretty trade, else how could I live in these hard 
times ?” 

‘The Egyptian replied gravely, that though Isis was prop- 
erly the goddess of agriculture, she was no less the patron of 
commerce. Then turning his head towards the east, Arbaces 
seemed absorbed in silent prayer. 

And now in the centre of the steps appeared a priest robed 
in white from head to foot, the veil parting over the crown; 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 39 


two new priests relieved those hitherto stationed at either 
corner, being naked half-way down to the breast, and covered, 
for the rest, in white and loose robes. At the same time, 
seated at the bottom of the steps, a priest commenced a sol- 
emn air upon a long wind-instrument of music. Half-way 
down the steps stood another flamen, holding in one hand the 
votive wreath, in the other a white wand; while, adding to 
the picturesque scene of that Eastern ceremony, the stately 
ibis (bird sacred to the Egyptian worship) looked mutely 
. down from the wall upon the rite, or stalked beside the altar 
at the base of the steps. 

At that altar now stood the sacrificial flamen.? 

The countenance of Arbaces seemed to lose all its rigid 
calm while the aruspices inspected the entrails, and to be 
intent in pious anxiety; to rejoice and brighten as the signs 
were declared favorable, and the fire began bright and clearly 
to consume the sacred portion of the victim amidst odors of 
myrrh and frankincense. It was then that a dead silence fell 
over the whispering crowd, and the priests gathering round 
the cella, another priest, naked save by a cincture round the 
middle, rushed forward, and dancing with wild gestures, im- 
plored an answer from the goddess. He ceased at last in 
exhaustion, and a low murmuring noise was heard within 
the body of the statue: thrice the head moved, and the 
lips parted, and then a hollow voice uttered these mystic 
words : — 

“ There are waves like chargers that meet and glow, 
There are graves ready wrought in the rocks below: 


On the brow of the future the dangers lour, 
But blest are your barks in the fearful hour.” 


The voice ceased; the crowd breathed more freely; the 
merchants looked at each other. “Nothing can be more 
plain,” murmured Diomed; “there is to be a storm at sea, 
as there very often is at the beginning of autumn, but our 
vessels are to be saved. O beneficent Isis!” 

“Lauded eternally be the goddess!” said the merchants; 
‘what can be less equivocal than her prediction ?” 


1 See a singular picture, in the Museum of Naples, of an Egyptian sacrifice. 


40 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Raising one hand in sign of silence to the people, — for the 
rites of Isis enjoined what to the lively Pompeians was an 
impossible suspense from the use of the vocal organs, — the 
chief priest poured his libation on the altar, and after a short 
concluding prayer the ceremony was over, and the congrega- 
tion dismissed. Still, however, as the crowd dispersed them- 
selves here and there, the Egyptian lingered by the railing, 
and when the space became tolerably cleared, one of the 
priests, approaching it, saluted him with great appearance 
of friendly familiarity. 

The countenance of the priest was remarkably unprepos- 
sessing. His shaven skull was so low and narrow in the front 
as nearly to approach to the conformation of that of an Afri- 
can savage, save only towards the temples, where, in that 
organ styled acquisitiveness by the pupils of a science mod- 
ern in name, but best practically known (as their sculpture 
teaches us) amongst the ancients, two huge and almost preter- 
natural protuberances yet more distorted the unshapely head. 
Around the brows the skin was puckered into a web of deep 
and intricate wrinkles; the eyes, dark and small, rolled in a 
muddy and yellow orbit; the nose, short yet coarse, was dis- 
tended at the nostrils like a satyr’s; and the thick but pallid 
lips, the high cheek-bones, the livid and motley hues that 
struggled through the parchment skin, completed a counte- 
nance which none could behold without repugnance, and few 
without terror and distrust. Whatever the wishes of the 
mind, the animal frame was well fitted to execute them; the 
wiry muscles of the throat, the broad chest, the nervous hands 
and lean gaunt arms, which were bared above the elbow, be- 
tokened a form capable alike of great active exertion and 
passive endurance. 

“Calenus,” said the Egyptian to this fascinating flamen, 
“you have improved the voice of the statue much by attend- 
ing to my suggestion; and your verses are excellent. Always 
prophesy good fortune, unless there is an absolute impossibility 
of its fulfilment.” 

“ Besides,” added Calenus, “if the storm does come, and if 
it does overwhelm the accursed ships, have we not prophesied 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 4t 


it, and are the barks not blest to be at rest? For rest prays 
the mariner in the Avgean sea, or at least so says Horace; can 
the mariner be more at rest in the sea than when he is at the 
bottom of it?” 

“Right, my Calenus; I wish Apecides would take a lesson 
from your wisdom. But I desire to confer with you relative to 
him and to other matters: you can admit me into one of your 
less sacred apartments ? ” 

“ Assuredly,” replied the priest, leading the way to one of 
- the small chambers which surrounded the open gate. Here 
they seated themselves before a small table spread with dishes 
containing fruit and eggs, and various cold meats, with vases 
of excellent wine, of which while the companions partook, a 
curtain, drawn across the entrance opening to the court, con- 
cealed them from view, but admonished them by the thinness 
of the partition to speak low, or to speak no secrets; they 
chose the former alternative. 

“Thou knowest,” said Arbaces, in a voice that. scarcely 
stirred the air, so soft and inward was its sound, “that. it has 
ever been my maxim to attach myself to the young. From 
their flexile and unformed minds I can carve out. my fittest 
tools. Iweave, I warp, 1 mould them at my will. Of the men 
I make merely followers or servants; of the women —” 

“‘ Mistresses,” said Calenus, as a livid grin distorted his un- 
gainly features. 

“ Yes, Ido not disguise it; woman is the main object, the 
great appetite of my soul. As you feed the victim for the 
slaughter, Zlove to rear the votaries of my pleasure. I love 
to train, to ripen their minds, to unfold the sweet blossom of 
their hidden passions, in order to prepare the fruit to my taste. 
I loathe your ready-made and ripened courtesans; it is in the 
soft and unconscious progress of innocence to desire that I find 
the true charm of love; it is thus that I defy satiety; and by 
contemplating the freshness of others, I sustain the freshness 
of my own sensations. From the young hearts of my victims: 
I draw the ingredients of the caldron in which I re-youth 
myself. But enough of this: to the subject before us. You 
know, then, that in Neapolis some time since: I encountered 


42 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


Ione and Apecides, brother and sister, the children of Athe- 
nians who had settled at Neapolis. The death of their parents, 
who knew and esteemed me, constituted me their guardian. I 
was not unmindful of the trust. The youth, docile and mild, 
yielded readily to the impression I sought to stamp upon him. 
Next to woman, I love the old recollections of my ancestral 
land; I love to keep alive, to propagate on distant shores 
{which her colonies perchance yet people) her dark and mystic 
ereeds. It may be that it pleases me to delude mankind while 
I thus serve the deities. To Apecides I taught the solemn 
faith of Isis. I unfolded to him something of those sublime 
allegories which are couched beneath her worship. I excited 
in a soul peculiarly alive to religious fervor that enthusiasm 
which imagination begets on faith. I have placed him amongst 
you; he is one of you.” 

“He is so,” said Calenus; “but in thus stimulating his faith, 
you have robbed him of wisdom. He is horror-struck that he 
is no longer duped: our sage delusions, our speaking statues 
and secret staircases dismay and revolt him; he pines; he 
wastes away; he mutters to himself; he refuses to share our 
eeremonies. He has been known to frequent the company of 
men suspected of adherence to that new and atheistical creed 
which denies all our gods, and terms our oracles the inspi- 
rations of that malevolent spirit of which Eastern tradition 
speaks. Our oracles — alas! we know well whose inspirations 
they are!” 

“This is what I feared,” said Arbaces, musingly, “from vari- 
ous reproaches he made me when I last saw him. Of late he 
hath shunned my steps; I must find him; I must continue my 
Jessons; I must lead him into the adytum of Wisdom; I must 
teach him that there are two stages of sanctity, —the first, 
FAITH, the next, DELUSION: the one for the vulgar, the second 
for the sage.” 

“T never passed through the first,” said Calenus; “nor you 
either, I think, my Arbaces.” 

“ You err,” replied the Egyptian, gravely. “TI believe at this 
day (not indeed that which I teach, but that which I teach 
not), Nature has.a.sanctity against which I cannot (nor would I) ° 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 43 


steel conviction. I believe in mine own knowledge, and that 
has revealed to me— But no matter. Now to earthlier and 
more inviting themes, If I thus fulfilled my object with Ape- 
cides, what was my design for Jone? Thou knowest already 
I intend her for my queen, my bride, my heart’s Isis, Never 
till I saw her knew I all the love of which my nature is 
capable.” 

“T hear from a thousand lips that she is a second Helen,” 
said Calenus ; and he smacked his own lips, but whether at the 
* wine or at the notion it is not easy to decide. 

“Yes, she has a beauty that Greece itself never excelled,” 
resumed Arbaces. “But that is not all; she has a soul wor- 
thy to match with mine. She has a genius beyond that of 
woman,— keen, dazzling, bold. Poetry flows spontaneous to her 
lips; utter but a truth, and, however intricate and profound, 
her mind seizes and commands it. Her imagination and her 
reason are not at war with each other; they harmonize and 
direct her course as the winds and the waves direct some lofty 
bark. With this she unites a daring independence of thought; 
she can stand alone in the world; she can be brave as she is 
gentle; this is the nature I have sought all my life in woman, 
and never found till now. Jone must be mine! In her I have 
a double passion; I wish to enjoy a beauty of spirit as of 
form.” 

«‘She is not yours yet, then?” said the priest. 

“No; she loves me, but as afriend: she loves me with 
her mind only. She fancies in me the paltry virtues which I 
have only the profounder virtue to disdain. But you must 
pursue with me her history. The brother and sister were 
young and rich; Ione is proud and ambitious, — proud of her 
genius, the magic of her poetry, the charm of her conversa- 
tion. When her brother left me, and entered your temple, in 
order to be near him she removed also to Pompeii. She has 
suffered her talents to be known. She summons crowds to her 
feasts; her voice enchants them, her poetry subdues. She 
delights in being thought the successor of Hrinna.” 

“Or of Sappho ? ” 

“ But Sappho without love! I encouraged her in this bold- 


44. THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


ness of career, —in this indulgence of vanity and of pleasure. 
I loved to steep her amidst the dissipations and luxury of this 
abandoned city. Mark me, Calenus, I desired to enervate her 
mind; it has been too pure to receive yet the breath which 
I wish not to pass, but burningly to eat into, the mirror. I 
wished her to be surrounded by lovers, hollow, vain, and frivo- 
lous (lovers that her nature must despise), in order to feel the 
want of love. Then, in those soft intervals of lassitude that 
succeed to excitement, I can weave my spells, — excite her in- 
terest, attract her passions, possess myself of her heart. For 
it is not the young, nor the beautiful, nor the gay, that should 
fascinate Ione; her imagination must be won, and the hfe of 
Arbaces has been one scene of triumph over the imaginations 
of his kind.” 

“And hast thou no fear, then, of thy rivals? The gallants 
of Italy are skilled in the art to please.” 

“None! Her Greek soul despises the barbarian Romans, 
and would scorn itself if it admitted a thought of love for one 
of that upstart race.” 

“ But thou art an Egyptian, not a Greek!” 

“ Heypt,” replied Arbaces, “is the mother of Athens. Her 
tutelary Minerva is our deity, and her founder, Cecrops, was 
the fugitive of Egyptian Sais. This have I already taught to 
her, and in my blood she venerates the eldest dynasties of 
earth. But yet I will own that of late some uneasy suspicions 
have crossed my mind. She is more silent than she used to 
be; she loves melancholy and subduing music; she sighs with- 
out an outward cause. This may be the beginning of love; it 
may be the want of love. In either case it is time for me to 
begin my operations on her fancies and her heart: in the one 
case, to divert the source of love to me; in the other, in me to 
awaken it. It is for this that I have sought you.” 

¢ And how can I assist you?” 

“Tam about to invite her to a feast in my house; I wish 
to dazzle, to bewilder, to inflame her senses. Our arts — the 
arts by which Egypt trained her young novitiates — must be 
employed; and under veil of the mysteries of religion I will 
open to her the secrets of love.” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. © 45 


« Ah! now I understand: one of those voluptuous banquets 
that, despite our dull vows of mortified coldness, we, thy 
priests of Isis, have shared at thy house.” 

“No, no! Thinkest thou her chaste eyes are ripe for such 
scenes? No; but first we must ensnare the brother, —an 
easier task. Listen to me while I give you my instructions.” 


CHAPTER V. 
MORE OF THE FLOWER-GIRL. — THE PROGRESS OF LOVE. 


THE sun shone gayly into that beautiful chamber in the 
house of Glaucus, which I have before said is now called 
“the Room of Leda.” The morning rays entered through 
rows of small casements at the higher part of the room, and 
through the door which opened on the garden, that answered 
to the inhabitants of the southern cities the same purpose 
that a greenhouse or conservatory does to us. The size of the 
garden did not adapt it for exercise, but the various and fra- 
grant plants with which it was filled gave a luxury to that 
indolence so dear to the dwellers in a sunny clime. And now 
the odors, fanned by a gentle wind creeping from the adjacent 
sea, scattered themselves over that chamber, whose walls vied 
with the richest colors of the most glowing flowers. Besides 
the gem of the room — the painting of Leda and Tyndarus — 
in the centre of each compartment of the walls were set other 
pictures of exquisite beauty. In one you saw Cupid leaning 
on the knees of Venus; in another Ariadne sleeping on the 
beach, unconscious of the perfidy of Theseus. Merrily the 
sunbeams played to and fro on the tessellated floor and 
the brilliant walls; far more happily came the. rays of joy to 
the heart of the young Glaucus. 

‘“‘T have seen her, then,” said he as he paced that narrow 
chamber, — “I have heard her, nay, I have spoken to her again ; 
I have listened to the music of her song, and she sung of glory 
and of Greece. I have discovered the long-sought idol of my 


46 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


dreams, and like the Cyprian sculptor, I have breathed life 
into my own imaginings.” 

Longer, perhaps, had been the enamoured soliloquy of Glau: 
cus, but at that moment a shadow darkened the threshold of 
the chamber, and a young female, still half a child in years, 
broke upon his solitude. She was dressed simply in a white 
tunic, which reached from the neck to the ankles; under her 
arm she bore a basket of flowers, and in the other hand she 
held a bronze water-vase; her features were more formed than 
exactly became her years, yet they were soft and feminine in 
their outline, and, without being beautiful in themselves, they 
were almost made so by their beauty of expression; there 
was something ineffably gentle, and you would say patient, in 
her aspect. A look of resigned sorrow, of tranquil endurance, 
had banished the smile, but not the sweetness, from her lips; 
something timid and cautious in her step, something wander- 
ing in her eyes, led you to suspect the affliction which she 
had suffered from her birth: she was blind, but in the orbs 
themselves there was no visible defect; their melancholy and 
subdued light was clear, cloudless, and serene. “They tell 
me that Glaucus is here,” said she; “‘may I come in?” 

“Ah, my Nydia,” said the Greek, “is that you? I knew 
you would not neglect my invitation.” 

“Glaucus did but justice to himself,” answered Nydia, 
with a blush; “for he has always been kind to the poor blind 
girl.” 

“Who could be otherwise ?” said Glaucus, tenderly, and in 
the voice of a compassionate brother. 

Nydia sighed and paused before she resumed, without re- 
plying to his remark. “You have but lately returned ? ” 

“This is the sixth sun that hath shone upon me at 
Pompeii.” 

“ And you are well? Ah, I need notask; for who that sees 
the earth, which they tell me is so beautiful, can be ill ? ” 

“Tam well. And you, Nydia, how you have grown! Next 
year you will be thinking what answer to make your lovers.” 

A second blush passed over the cheek of Nydia, but this 
time she frowned as she blushed. “I have brought you some 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. AT 


flowers,” satd she, without replying to a remark that she 
seemed to resent; and feeling about the room till she found 
the table that stood by Glaucus, she laid the basket upon it; 
“they are poor, but they are fresh-gathered.” 

“They might come from Flora herself,” said he, kindly ; 
“and I renew again my vow to the Graces, that I will wear 
no other garlands while thy hands can weave me such ag 
these.” 

“And how find you the flowers in your viridarium? Are 

they thriving ?” 

' Wonderfully so. The Lares themselves must have tended 
them.” 

“ Ah, now you give me pleasure; for I came, as often as I 
could steal the leisure, to water and tend them in your 
absence.” 

“How shall I thank thee, fair Nydia?” said the Greek. 
“ Glaucus little dreamed that he left one memory so watch- 
ful over his favorites at Pompeii.” 

The hand of the child trembled, and her breast heaved 
beneath her tunic. She turned round in embarrassment. 
“The sun is hot for the poor flowers,” said she, “to-day, and 
they will miss me; for I have been ill lately, and it is nine 
days since I visited them.” 

“Til, Nydia! yet your cheek has more color than it had 
last year.” 

“T am often ailing,” said the blind girl, touchingly; “and 
as I grow up I grieve more that Iam blind. But now to the 
flowers!” So saying, she made a slight reverence with her 
head, and passing into the viridarium, busied herself with 
watering the flowers. 

“Poor Nydia,” thought Glaucus, gazing on her; “thine is 
a hard doom! ‘Thou seest not the earth, nor the sun, nor the 
ocean, nor the stars; above all, thou canst not behold Ione.” 

At that last thought his mind flew back to the past even- 
ing, and was a second time disturbed in its reveries by the 
entrance of Clodius. It was a proof how much a single even- 
ing had sufficed to increase and to refine the love of the 
Athenian for Ione, that whereas he had confided to Clodius 


48 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


the secret of his first interview with her, and the effect it 
had produced on him, he now felt an invincible aversion even 
to mention to him her name. He had seen Ione, bright, pure, 
unsullied, in the midst of the gayest and most profligate 
gallants of Pompeii, charming rather than awing the boldest 
into respect, and changing the very nature of the most sensual 
and the least ideal, —as by her intellectual and refining spells 
she reversed the fable of Circe, and converted the animals 
into men. They who could not understand her soul were 
made spiritual, as it were, by the magic of her beauty; they 
who had no heart for poetry had ears, at least, for the melody 
of her voice. Seeing her thus surrounded, purifying and 
brightening all things with her presence, Glaucus almost for 
the first time felt the nobleness of his own nature. He felt 
how unworthy of the goddess of his dreams had been his 
companions and his pursuits. A veil seemed lifted from his 
eyes; he saw that immeasurable distance between himself 
and his associates which the deceiving mists of pleasure had 
hitherto concealed; he was refined by a sense of his courage 
in aspiring to Ione. He felt that henceforth it was his 
destiny to look upward and to soar. He could no longer 
breathe that name, which sounded to the sense of his ardent 
fancy as something sacred and divine, to lewd and vulgar ears. 
She was no longer the beautiful girl once seen and _ passion- 
ately remembered ; she was already the mistress, the divinity 
of his soul. This feeling who has not experienced? If thou 
hast not, then thou hast never loved. 

When Clodius therefore spoke to him in affected transports 
of the beauty of Ione, Glaucus felt only resentment and dis- 
cust that such lips should dare to praise her; he answered 
coldly, and the Roman imagined that his passion was cured 
instead of heightened. Clodius scarcely regretted it, for he 
was anxious that Glaucus should marry an heiress yet more 
richly endowed, — Julia, the daughter of the wealthy Diomed, 
whose gold the gamester imagined he could readily divert into 
his own coffers. Their conversation did not flow with its 
usual ease; and no sooner had Clodius left him than Glaucus 
bent his way to the house of Ione. In passing by the thresh- 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 49 


old he again encountered Nydia, who had finished her grace- 
ful task. She knew his step on the instant. 

‘You are early abroad ? ” said she. 

“Yes; for the skies of Campania rebuke the sluggard who 
negleets them.” 

‘Ah, would I could see them!” murmured the blind girl, 
but so low that Glaucus did not overhear the complaint. 

The Thessalian lingered on the threshold a few moments, 
and then guiding her steps by a long staff, which she used 
_with great dexterity, she took her way homeward. She soon 
turned from the more gaudy streets, and entered a quarter of 
the town but little loved by the decorous and the sober; but 
from the low and rude evidences of vice around her she was 
saved by her misfortune; and at that hour the streets were 
quiet and silent, nor was her youthful ear shocked by the 
sounds which too often broke along the ooscene and obscure 
haunts she patiently and sadly traversed. 

She knocked at the back door of a sort of tavern; it 
opened, and a rude voice bade her give an account of the 
sesterces. Ere she could reply, another voice, less vulgarly 
accented, said, — 

“Never mind those petty profits, my Burbo. The girl’s 
voice will be wanted again soon at our rich friend’s revels; 
and he pays, as thou knowest, pretty high for his nightingales’ 
tongues.” 

“Oh, I hope not, I trust not,” cried Nydia trembling; “TI 
will beg from sunrise to sunset, but send me not there.” 

“ And why ?” asked the same voice. 

“Because — because I am young and delicately born, and 
the female companions I meet there are not fit associates for 
one who — who —” 

“Ts a slave in the house of Burbo,” returned the voice, 
ironically, and with a coarse laugh. 

The Thessalian put down the flowers, and, leaning her face 
on her hands, wept silently. 

Meanwhile Glaucus sought the house of the beautiful Nea- 
politan. He found Ione sitting amidst her attendants, who 
were at work around her. Her harp stood at her side, for 

VOL. I. —4 


50) THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Tone herself was unusually idle, perhaps unusually thought- 
ful, that day. He thought her even more beautiful by the 
morning light, and in her simple robe, than amidst the blaz- 
ing lamps, and decorated with the costly jewels of the pre- 
vious night,—not the less so from a certain paleness that 
overspread her transparent hues; not the less so from the 
blush that mounted over them when he approached. Accus- 
tomed to flatter, flattery died upon his lips when he addressed 
Tone. He felt it beneath her to utter the homage which every 
look conveyed. They spoke of Greece; this was a theme on 
which Ione loved rather to listen than to converse: it was a 
theme on which the Greek could have been eloquent forever. 
He described to her the silver olive-groves that yet clad the 
banks of Ilissus, and the temples, already despoiled of half 
their glories, but how beautiful in decay! He looked back 
on the melancholy city of Harmodius the free, and Pericles 
the magnificent, from the height of that distant memory 
which mellowed into one hazy light all the ruder and darker 
shades. He had seen the land of poetry chiefly in the poet- 
ical age of early youth; and the associations of patriotism 
were blended with those of the flush and spring of hfe. And 
Tone listened to him, absorbed and mute; dearer were those 
accents and those descriptions than all the prodigal adula- 
tion of her numberless adorers. Was it a sin to love her 
countrymen ? She loved Athens in him: the gods of her race, 
the land of her dreams, spoke to her in his voice. From that 
time they daily saw each other. At the cool of the evening 
they made excursions on the placid sea; by night they met 
again in Jone’s porticos and halls. Their love was sudden, 
but it was strong; it filled all the sources of their life. 
Heart, brain, sense, imagination, all were its ministers and 
priests. As you take some obstacle from two objects that 
have a mutual attraction, they met, and united at once; their 
wonder was, that they had lived separate so long. And it 
was natural that they should so love. Young, beautiful, and 
gifted, — of the same birth and the same souls, —there was 
poetry in their very union. They imagined the heavens 
smiled upon their affection. As the persecuted seek refuge 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 51 


at the shrine, so they recognized in the altar of their love an 
asylum from tne sorrows of earth; they covered it with flow- 
ers, — they knew not of the serpents that lay coiled behind. 

One evening, the fifth after their first meeting at Pompeii, 
Glaucus and Ione, with a small party of chosen friends, were 
returning from an excursion round the bay; their vessel 
skimmed lightly over the twilight waters, whose lucid mirror 
was only broken by the dripping oars. As the rest of the 
party conversed gayly with each other, Glaucus lay at the 
feet of Ione, and he would have looked up in her face, but 
he did not dare. Ione broke the pause between them. 

“My poor brother,” said she, sighing, “ how once he would 
have enjoyed this hour !” 

‘Your brother,” said Glaucus; “I have not seen him. Oc- 
cupied with you, I have thought of nothing else, or I should 
have asked if that was not your brother for whose companion- 
ship you left me at the Temple of Minerva, in Neapolis.” 

“Tt was.” 

“And is he'here ? ” 

bie 18." 

“ At Pompeii, and not constantly with you! Impossible!” 

“He has other duties,” answered Ione, sadly; “he is a 
priest of Isis.” 

“So young, too; and that priesthood, in its laws at least, so 
severe!” said the warm and bright-hearted Greek, in surprise 
and pity. “ What could have been his inducement ? ” 

“He was always enthusiastic and fervent in religious de- 
votion, and the eloquence of an Egyptian — our friend and 
guardian— kindled in him the pious desire to consecrate his 
life to the most mystic of our deities. Perhaps in the in- 
tenseness of his zeal he found in the severity of that peculiar 
priesthood its peculiar attraction.” 

« And he does not repent his choice? I trust he is happy.” 

Tone sighed deeply, and lowered her veil over her eyes. 

“1 wish,” said she, after a pause, “that he had not been so 
hasty. Perhaps, like all who expect too much, he is revolted 
too easily.” 

“Then he is not happy in his new condition. And this 


52 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Egyptian, — was he a priest himself? Was he interested in 
recruits to the sacred band ? ” 

“No. His main interest was in our happiness. He thought 
he promoted that of my brother. We were left orphans.” 

“Like myself,” said Glaucus, with a deep meaning in his 
voice. 

Jone cast down her eyes as she resumed, — 

“ And Arbaces sought to supply the place of our parent. 
You must know him. He loves genius.” 

“ Arbaces! I know him already; at least, we speak when 
we meet. But for your praise I would not seek to know more 
of him. My heart inclines readily to most of my kind. But 
that dark Egyptian, with his gloomy brow and icy smiles, 
seems to me to sadden the very sun. One would think that, 
like Epimenides the Cretan, he had spent forty years in a 
cave, and had found something unnatural in the daylight ever 
afterwards.” 

“Yet, like Epimenides, he is kind, and wise, and gentle,” 
answered Ione. 

“Oh, happy that he has thy praise! He needs no other 
virtues to make him dear to me.” 

« His calm, his coldness,” said Ione, evasively pursuing the 
subject, “are perhaps but the exhaustion of past sufferings ; 
as yonder mountain [and she pointed to Vesuvius], which we 
see dark and tranquil in the distance, once nursed the fires 
forever quenched.” 

They both gazed on the mountain as Ione said these words; 
the rest of the sky was bathed in rosy and tender hues, but 
over that gray summit, rising amidst the woods and vineyards 
that then clomb half-way up the ascent, there hung a black 
and ominous cloud, the single frown of the landscape. A 
sudden and unaccountable gloom came over each as they thus 
gazed; and in that sympathy which love had already taught 
them, and which bade them, in the slightest shadows of emo- 
tion, the faintest presentiment of evil, turn for refuge to each 
other, their gaze at the same moment left the mountain, and, 
full of unimaginable tenderness, met. What need had they 
of words to say they loved ? 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL O8 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE FOWLER SNARES AGAIN THE BIRD THAT HAD JUST ES- 
CAPED, AND SETS HIS NETS FOR A NEW VICTIM. 


In the history I relate, the events are crowded and rapid as 
those of the drama. I write of an epoch in which days sufficed 
to ripen the ordinary fruits of years. 

Meanwhile, Arbaces had not of late much frequented the 
house of Ione; and when he had visited her he had not en- 
countered Glaucus, nor knew he, as yet, of that love which had 
so suddenly sprung up between himself and his designs. In 
his interest for the brother of Ione, he had been forced, too, 
a little while to suspend his interest in Ione herself. His 
pride and his selfishness were aroused and alarmed at the 
sudden change which had come over the spirit of the youth. 
He trembled lest he himself should lose a docile pupil, and 
Isis an enthusiastic servant. Apacides had ceased to seek or 
to consult him. He was rarely to be found; he turned sul- 
lenly from the Egyptian,—nay, he fled when he perceived 
him in the distance. Arbaces was one of those haughty and 
powerful spirits accustomed to master others; he chafed at 
the notion that one once his own should ever elude his grasp. 
He swore inly that Apzcides should not escape him. 

It was with this resolution that he passed through a thick 
grove in the city, which lay between his house and that of 
Ione, in his way to the latter; and there, leaning against a 
tree, and gazing on the ground, he came unawares on the 
young priest of Isis. 

“ Apecides!” said he, —and he laid his hand affectionately 
on the young man’s shoulder. 

The priest started, and his first instinct seemed to be that 
of flight. “My son,” said the Egyptian, “what has chanced 
that you desire to shun me?” 

Apecides remained silent and sullen, looking down on the 
earth, as his lips quivered and his breast heaved with emotion. 


iy: Ae THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


“Speak to me, my friend,” continued the Egyptian. “Speak. 
Something burdens thy spirit. What hast thou to reveal ?” 

‘To thee — nothing.” 

¢ And why is it to me thou art thus unconfidential ?” 

“Because thou hast been my enemy.” 

“ Let us confer,” said Arbaces, in a low voice; and drawing 
the reluctant arm of the priest in his own, he led him to one 
of the seats which were scattered within the grove. They sat 
down, —and in those gloomy forms there was something con- 
genial to the shade and solitude of the place. 

Apeecides was in the spring of his years, yet he seemed to 
have exhausted even more of life than the Egyptian; his deli- 
cate and regular features were worn and colorless; his eyes 
were hollow, and shone with a brilliant and feverish glare; 
his frame bowed prematurely, and in his hands, which were 
small to effeminacy, the blue and swollen veins indicated the 
lassitude and weakness of the relaxed fibres. You saw in his 
face a strong resemblance to lone, but the expression was 
altogether different from that majestic and spiritual calm 
which breathed so divine and classical a repose over his sis- 
ter’s beauty. In her, enthusiasm was visible, but it seemed 
always suppressed and restrained; this made the charm and 
sentiment of her countenance: you longed to awaken a spirit 
which reposed, but evidently did not sleep. In Apzcides the 
whole aspect betokened the fervor and passion of his tempera- 
ment, and the intellectual portion of his nature seemed, by the 
wild fire of the eyes, the great breadth of the temples when 
compared with the height of the brow, the trembling restless- 
ness of the lips, to be swayed and tyrannized over by the 
imaginative and ideal. Fancy, with the sister, had stopped 
short at the golden goal of poetry: with the brother, less 
happy and less restrained, it had wandered into visions more 
intangible and unembodied; and the faculties which gave 
zenius to the one threatened madness to the other. 

“You say I have been your enemy,” said Arbaces, “I 
know the cause of that unjust accusation: I have placed you 
amidst the priests of Isis; you are revolted at their trickeries 
and imposture; you think that I too have deceived you; the 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 5d 


purity of your mind is offended ; you imagine that I am one 
of the deceitful —” 

“You knew the jugglings of that impious craft,” answered 
Apecides; “why did you disguise them from me? When 
you excited my desire to devote myself to the office whose 
garb I bear, you spoke to me of the holy life of men resigning 
themselves to knowledge — you have given me for companions 


- an ignorant and sensual herd, who have no knowledge but that 


of the grossest frauds; you spoke to me of men sacrificing 
the earthlier pleasures to the sublime cultivation of virtue — 
you place me amongst men reeking with all the filthiness of 
vice; you spoke to me of the friends, the enlighteners of 
our common kind —lI see but their cheats and deluders! Oh, 
it was basely done! You have robbed me of the glory of 
youth, of the convictions of virtue, of the sanctifying thirst 
after wisdom. Young as I was, rich, fervent, the sunny 
pleasures of earth before me, I resigned all without a sigh, 
nay, with happiness and exultation, in the thought that I 
resigned them for the abstruse mysteries of diviner wisdom, 
for the companionship of gods, for the revelations of Heaven; 
and now — now —” 

Convulsive sobs checked the priest’s voice; he covered his 
face with his hands, and large tears forced themselves through 
the wasted fingers and ran profusely down his vest. 

“What I promised to thee, that will I give, my friend, 
my pupil: these have been but trials to thy virtue; it comes 
forth the brighter for thy novitiate. Think no more of those 
dull cheats, assort no more with those menials of the god- 
dess, the atrienses! of her hall; you are worthy to enter into 
the penetralia. I henceforth will be your priest, your guide, 
and you who now curse my friendship shall live to bless it.” 

The young man lifted up his head, and gazed with a vacant 
and wondering stare upon the Egyptian. 

“ Listen to me,” continued Arbaces, in an earnest and sol- 
enn voice, casting first bis searching eyes around to see that 
they were still alone. “From Egypt came all the knowledge 
of the world; from Egypt came the lore of Athens, and the 


1 The slaves who had the care of the atrium. 


D6 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPET. 


profound policy of Crete; from Egypt came those early and 
mysterious tribes which (long before the hordes of Romulus 
swept over the plains of Italy, and in the eternal cycle of 
events drove back civilization into barbarism and darkness) 
possessed all the arts of wisdom and the graces of intellectual 
life. From Egypt came the rites and the grandeur of that 
solemn Cere, whose inhabitants taught their iron vanquishers 
of Rome all that they yet know of elevated in religion and 
sublime in worship. And how deemest thou, young man, that 
that dread Egypt, the mother of countless nations, achieved 
her greatness, and soared to her cloud-capt eminence of wis- 
dom? It was the result of a profound and holy policy. 
Your modern nations owe their greatness to Egypt — Egypt 
her greatness to her priests. Rapt in themselves, coveting a 
sway over the nobler part of man, his soul and his belief, those 
ancient ministers of God were inspired with the grandest 
thought that ever exalted mortals. From the revolutions of 
the stars, from the seasons of the earth, from the round and 
unvarying circle of human destinies, they devised an august 
allegory; they made it gross and palpable to the vulgar by 
the signs of gods and goddesses, and that which in reality was 
Government they named Religion. Isis is a fable — start not! 
That for which Isis is a type is a reality, an immortal being; 
Isis is nothing. Nature, which she represents, is the mother 
of all things, — dark, ancient, inscrutable, save to the gifted 
few. ‘None among mortals hath ever lifted up my veil,’ so 
saith the Isis that you adore; but to the wise that veil hath 
been removed, and we have stood face to face with the solemn 
loveliness of Nature. ‘The priests then were the benefactors, 
the civilizers of mankind; true, they were also cheats, impos- 
tors if you will. But think you, young man, that if they had 
not deceived their kind they could have served them? ‘The 
ignorant and servile vulgar must be blinded to attain to their 
proper good; they would not believe a maxim — they revere 
an oracle. The Emperor of Rome sways the vast and various 
tribes of earth, and harmonizes the conflicting and disunited 
elements ; thence come peace, order, law, the blessings of life. 
Think you it is the man, the emperor, that thus sways? No, it 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 57 


is the pomp, the awe, the majesty that surround him, — these are 
his impostures, his delusions ; our oracles and our divinations, 
our rites and our ceremonies, are the means of our sovereignty 
and the engines of owr power. They are the same means to the 
same end, — the welfare and harmony of mankind. You listen 
to me rapt and intent; the light begins to dawn upon you.” 

Apeecides remained silent, but the changes rapidly passing 
over his speaking countenance betrayed the effect produced 
upon him by the words of the Egyptian, — words made tenfold 
more eloquent by the voice, the aspect, and the manner of the 
man. 

“While, then,” resumed Arbaces, “our fathers of the Nile 
thus achieved the first elements by whose life chaos is de. 
stroyed, namely, the obedience and reverence of the multitude 
for the few, they drew from their majestic and starred medi- 
tations that wisdom which was no delusion: they invented 
the codes and regularities of law, the arts and glories of exist- 
ence. They asked belief; they returned the gift by civili- 
zation. Were not their very cheats a virtue? Trust me, 
whosoever in yon far heavens of a diviner and more beneficent 
nature look down upon our world, smile approvingly on the 
wisdom which has worked such ends. But you wish me to 
apply these generalities to yourself; I hasten to obey the 
wish. The altars of the goddess of our ancient faith must be 
served, and served too by others than the stolid and soulless 
things that are but as pegs and hooks whereon to hang the fil- 
let and the robe. Remember two sayings of Sextus the Pytha- 
gorean, — sayings borrowed from the lore of Egypt. The first 
is, ‘Speak not of God to the multitude;’ the second is, ‘The 
man worthy of God is a god among men.’ As genius gave to 
the ministers of Egypt worship, that empire in late ages so 
fearfully decayed, thus by Genius only can the dominion be 
restored. I saw in you, Apecides, a pupil worthy of my les- 
sons, a minister worthy of the great ends which may yet be 
wrought. Your energy, your talents, your purity of faith, your 
earnestness of enthusiasm, all fitted yon for that calling which 
demands so imperiously high and ardent qualities: I fanned, 
therefore, your sacred desires; I stimulated you to the step 


58 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


you have taken. But you blame me that I did not reveal to 
you the little souls and the juggling tricks of your companions. 
Had I done so, Apzxcides, I had defeated my own object; your 
noble nature would have at once revolted, and Isis would have 
lost her priest.” 

Apecides groaned aloud. The Egyptian continued, without 
heeding the interruption. 

“‘T placed you, therefore, without preparation, in the temple; : 
I left you suddenly to discover and to be sickened by all those 
mummeries which dazzle the herd. I desired that you should 
perceive how those engines are moved by which the fountain 
that refreshes the world casts its waters in the air. It was the 
trial ordained of old to all our priests. They who accustom 
themselves to the impostures of the vulgar, are left to prac- 
tise them, for those, like you, whose higher natures demand 
higher pursuit, religion opens more godlike secrets. I am 
pleased to find in you the character I had expected. You have 
taken the vows; you cannot recede. Advance: I will be your 
guide.” : 

“¢ And what wilt thou teach me, O singular and fearful man ? 
New cheats — new —” 

‘No; I have thrown thee into the abyss of disbelief: I will 
lead thee now to the eminence of faith. Thou hast seen the 
false types: thou shalt learn now the realities they represent. 
There is no shadow, Apecides, without its substance. Come to 
me this night. Your hand.” 

Impressed, excited, bewildered by the language of the Egyp- 
tian, Apzcides gave him his hand, and master and pupil 
parted. 

It was true that for Apecides there was no retreat. He had 
taken the vows of celibacy; he had devoted himself to a life 
that at present seemed to possess all the austerities of fanati- 
cism, without any of the consolations of belief. It was natural 
that he should yet cling to a yearning desire to reconcile him- 
self to an irrevocable career. The powerful and profound 
mind of the Egyptian yet claimed an empire over his young 
imagination, excited him with vague conjecture, and kept him 
alternately vibrating between hope and fear. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. o9 


Meanwhile Arbaces pursued his slow and stately way to the 
house of Ione. As he entered the tablinum, he héard a voice 
from the porticos of the peristyle beyond, which, musical as it 
was, sounded displeasingly on his ear: it was the voice of the 
young and beautiful Glaucus, and for the first time an involun- 
tary thrill of jealousy shot through the breast of the Ngyptian. 
On entering the peristyle he found Glaucus seated by the side 
of Ione. The fountain in the odorous garden cast up its silver 
spray in the air, and kept a delicious coolness in the midst of 
the sultry noon. The handmaids, almost invariably attendant 
on Jone, who with her freedom of life preserved the most deli- 
cate modesty, sat at a little distance; by the feet of Glaucus 
lay the lyre on which he had been playing to Ione one of the 
Lesbian airs. The scene—the group before Arbaces — was 
stamped by that peculiar and refined ideality of poesy which 
we yet, not erroneously, imagine to be the distinction of the 
ancients, — the marble columns, the vases of flowers, the statue, 
white and tranquil, closing every vista; and, above all, the two 
living forms, from which a sculptor might have caught either 
inspiration or despair. 

Arbaces, pausing for a moment, gazed on the pair with a 
brow from which all the usual stern serenity had fled; he re- 
covered himself by an effort, and slowly approached them, but 
with a step so soft and echoless that even the attendants heard 
him not, — much less Jone and her lover. 

“ And yet,” said Glaucus, “it is only before we love that we 
imagine that our poets have truly described the passion; the 
instant the sun rises, all the stars that had shone in his absence 
vanish into air. The poets exist only in the night of the heart; 
they are nothing to us when we feel the full glory of the god.” 

“ A gentle and most glowing image, noble Glaucus.” 

Both started, and recognized behind the seat of Ione the cold 
and sarcastic face of the Egyptian. 

“ You are a sudden guest,” said Glaucus, rising, and with a 
forced smile. 

“So ought all to be who know they are welcome,” returned 
Arbaces, seating himself, and motioning to Glaucus to do the 
same. 3 


60 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“T am glad,” said Ione, “to see you at length together ; 
for you are suited to each other, and you are formed to be 
friends.” 

“Give me back some fifteen years of life,” replied the 
Egyptian, “before you can place me on an equality with 
Glaucus. Happy should I be to receive his friendship; but 
what can I give him in return? Can I make to him the same 
confidences that he would repose in me,—of banquets and 
garlands, of Parthian steeds and the chances of the dice? 
these pleasures suit his age, his nature, his career: they are 
not for mine.” 

So saying, the artful Egyptian looked down and sighed; but 
from the corner of his eye he stole a glance towards Ione, to 
see how she received these insinuations of the pursuits of her 
visitor. Her countenance did not satisfy him. Glaucus, 
slightly coloring, hastened gayly to reply. Nor was he, per- 
haps, without the wish in his turn to disconcert and abash the 
Egyptian. 

‘You are right, wise Arbaces,” said he; “we can esteem each 
other, but we cannot be friends. My banquets lack the secret 
salt, which, according to rumor, gives such zest to your own. 
And, by Hercules! when I have reached your age, if I, like 
you, may think it wise to pursue the pleasures of manhood, 
like you I shall be doubtless sarcastic on the gallantries of 
youth.” 

The Egyptian raised his eyes to Glaucus with a sudden and 
piercing glance, 

“JT do not understand you,” said he, coldly; “but it is the 
custom to consider that wit lies in obscurity.” He turned from 
Glaucus as he spoke, with a scarcely perceptible sneer of con- 
tempt, and after a moment’s pause addressed himself to Ione. 
“JT have not, beautiful Ione,” said he, “been fortunate enough 
to find you within doors the last two or three times that I have 
visited your vestibule.” 

“The smoothness of the sea has tempted me much from 
home,” replied Ione, with a little embarrassment. 

The embarrassment did not escape Arbaces; but without 
seeming to heed it, he replied with a smile: “ You know that 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 61 


the old poet says, ‘Women should keep within doors, and there 
converse.’ ’”’} 

“The poet was a cynic,” said Glaucus, “and hated women.” 

“Fle spake according to the customs of his country, and that 
country is your boasted Greece.” 

“lo different periods different customs. Had our fore- 
fathers known Ione, they had made a different law.” 

“Did you learn these pretty gallantries at Rome?” said 
Arbaces, with ill-suppressed emotion. 

“One certainly would not go for gallantries to Egypt,” 
retorted Glaucus, playing carelessly with his chain. 

“Come, come,” said Ione, hastening to interrupt a conver- 
sation which she saw, to her great distress, was so little likely 
to cement the intimacy she had desired to effect between 
Glaucus and’ her friend, “ Arbaces must not be so hard upon 
his poor pupil. An orphan, and without a mother’s care, I 
may be to blame for the independent and almost masculine 
liberty of life that I have chosen: yet it is not greater than 
the Roman women are accustomed to; it is not greater than 
the Grecian ought to be. Alas! is it only to be among men 
that freedom and virtue are to be deemed united? Why should 
the slavery that destroys you be considered the only method 
to preserve us? Ah! believe me, it has been the great error 
of men —and one that has worked bitterly on their destinies 
—to imagine that the nature of women is (I will not say 
inferior, that may be so, but) so different from their own, in 
making laws unfavorable to the intellectual advancement of 
women. Have they not, in so doing, made laws against their 
children, whom women are to rear, —against the husbands, 
of whom women are to be the friends, nay, sometimes the 
advisers?” Ione stopped short suddenly, and her face was 
suffused with the most enchanting blushes. She feared lest 
her enthusiasm had led her too far; yet she feared the austere 
Arbaces less than the courteous Glaucus, for she loved the 
last, and it was not the custom of the Greeks to allow their 
women (at least such of their women as they most honored) 
the same liberty and the same station as those of Italy enjoyed. 


1 Kuripides. 


62 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


She felt, therefore, a thrill of delight as Glaucus earnestly 
replied, — 

“Ever mayst thou think thus, Ione; ever be your pure 
heart your unerring guide. Happy it had been for Greece 
if she had given to the chaste the same intellectual charms 
that are so celebrated amongst the less worthy of her women. 
No State falls from freedom — from knowledge — while your 
sex smile only on the free, and by appreciating, encourage 
the wise.” 

Arbaces was silent, for it was neither his part to sanction 
the sentiment of Glaucus, nor to condemn that of Ione; and, 
after a short and embarrassed conversation, Glaucus took his 
leave of Ione. 

When he was gone, Arbaces, drawing his seat nearer to the 
fair Neapolitan’s, said in those bland and subdued tones in 
which he knew so well how to veil the mingled art and fierce- 
ness of his character, — 

“Think not, my sweet pupil, if so I may call you, that I 
wish to shackle that liberty you adorn while you assume; but 
which, if not greater, as you rightly observe, than that pos- 
sessed by the Roman women, must at least be accompanied 
by great circumspection when arrogated by one unmarried. 
Continue to draw crowds of the gay, the brilliant, the wise 
themselves, to your feet; continue to charm them with the 
conversation of an Aspasia, the music of an Erinna; but 
reflect, at least, on those censorious tongues which can so 
easily blight the tender reputation of a maiden; and while 
you provoke admiration, give, I beseech you, no victory to 
envy.” 

“ What mean you, Arbaces?” said Ione, in an alarmed and 
trembling voice; “I know you are my friend, that you de- 
sire only my honor and my welfare. What is it you would 
say?” 

“Your friend —ah, how sincerely! May I speak then as a 
friend, without reserve and without offence ?” 

“T beseech you do so.” 

“This young profligate, this Glaucus, how didst thou know 
him? Hast thou seen him often?” And as Arbaces spoke, 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, 63 


he fixed his gaze steadfastly upon Ione, as if he sought to 
penetrate into her soul. 

Recoiling before that gaze, with a strange fear which she 
could not explain, the Neapolitan answered with confusion and 
hesitation: “ He was brought to my house as a countryman of 
my father’s, and I may say of mine. I have known him only 
within this last week or so; but why these questions ?” 

“Forgive me,” said Arbaces; “I thought you might have 
known him longer, — base insinuator that he is!” 

“How! what mean you? Why that term ?” 

“Jt matters not; let me not rouse your indignation against 
one who does not deserve so grave an honor.” 

“JT implore you speak. What has Glaucus insinuated; or. 
rather, in what do you suppose he has offended ? ” 
Smothering his resentment at the last part of Ione’s ques- 
tion, Arbaces continued: “You know his pursuits, his com- 
panions, his habits: the comissatio and the alea (the revel and 
the dice) make his occupation; and amongst the associates of 
vice how can he dream of virtue ?” 

“Still you speak riddles. By the gods! I entreat you, say 
the worst at once.” 

“Well, then, it must be so. Know, my Ione, that it was 
but yesterday that Glaucus boasted openly, yes, in the public 
baths, of your love to him. He said it amused him to take 
advantage of it. Nay, I will do him justice, he praised your 
beauty; who could deny it? But he laughed scornfully when 
his Clodius or his Lepidus asked him if he loved you enough 
for marriage, and when he purposed to adorn his door-posts 
with flowers.” 

“Tmpossible! How heard you this base slander ?” 

“Nay, would you have me relate to you all the comments 
of the insolent coxcombs with which the story has circled 
through the town? Be assured that I myself disbelieved at 
first, and that I have now painfully been convinced by sev- 
eral ear-witnesses of the truth of what I have reluctantly told 
thee.” 

Ione sank back, and her face was whiter than the pillar 
against which she leaned for support. 


64 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“T own it vexed, it irritated me, to hear your name thus 
lightly pitched from lip to lip, like some mere dancing-girl’s 
fame. JI hastened this morning to seek and to warn you. I 
found Glaucus here. I was stung from my self-possession. 
I could not conceal my feelings; nay, I was uncourteous in 
thy presence. Canst thou forgive thy friend, Ione?” 

Tone placed her hand in his, but replied not. 

“Think no more of this,” said he; “but let it be a warning 
voice to tell thee how much prudence thy lot requires. It 
cannot hurt thee, Ione, for a moment; for a gay thing like 
this could never have been honored by even a serious thought 
from Ione. These insults only wound when they come from 
one we love; far different indeed is he whom the lofty Ione 
shall stoop to love.” 

“Love!” muttered Ione, with an hysterical laugh. “Ay, 
indeed.” 

It is not without interest to observe in those remote times, 
and under a social system so widely different from the modern, 
the same small causes that ruffle and interrupt the “course 
of love,” which operate so commonly at this day; the same 
inventive jealousy, the same cunning slander, the same crafty 
and fabricated retailings of petty gossip, which so often now 
suffice to break the ties of the truest love, and counteract the 
tenor of circumstances most apparently propitious. When the 
bark sails on over the smocthest wave, the fable tells us of 
the diminutive fish that can cling to the keel and arrest its 
progress: so is it ever with the great passions of mankind; 
and we should paint life but ill if, even in times the most 
prodigal of romance, and of the romance of which we most 
largely avail ourselves, we did not also describe the mechanism 
of those trivial and household springs of mischief which we 
see every day at work in our chambers and at our hearths. It 
is in these, the lesser intrigues of hfe, that we mostly find 
ourselves at home with the past. 

Most cunningly had the Egyptian appealed to Ione’s ruling 
foible; most dexterously had he applied the poisoned dart to 
her pride. He fancied he had arrested what he hoped, from 
the shortness of the time she had known Glaucus, was, at most, 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 65 


but an incipient fancy; and hastening to change the subject, 
he now led her to talk of her brother. Their conversation did 
not last long. He left her, resolved not again to trust so much 
to absence, but to visit, to watch her, every day. 

No sooner had his shadow glided from her presence than 
woman’s pride, her sex’s dissimulation, deserted his intended 
victim, and the haughty Ione burst into passionate tears. 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE GAY LIFE OF THE POMPEIAN LOUNGER. — A MINIATURE 
LIKENESS OF THE ROMAN BATHS. 


WueEn Glaucus left Ione, he felt as if he trod upon air. In 
the interview with which he had just been blessed, he had for 
the first time gathered from her distinctly that his love was not 
unwelcome to, and would not be unrewarded by her. This hope 
filled him with a rapture for which earth and heaven seemed 
too narrow to afford a vent. Unconscious of the sudden en- 
emy he had left behind, and forgetting not only his taunts but 
his very existence, Glaucus passed through the gay streets, re- 
peating to himself, in the wantonness of joy, the music of the 
soft air to which Ione had listened with such intentness; and 
now he entered the Street of Fortune, with its raised footpath, 
—its houses painted without, and the open doors admitting 
the view of the glowing frescos within. Each end of the 
street was adorned with a triumphal arch; and as Glaucus 
now came before the Temple of Fortune, the jutting portico 
of that beautiful fane (which is supposed to have been built 
by one of the family of Cicero, perhaps by the orator himself) 
imparted a dignified and venerable feature to a scene other- 
wise more brilliant than lofty in its character. That temple 
was one of the most graceful specimens of Roman architecture. 
It was raised on a somewhat lofty podium; and between two 
flights of steps ascending to a platform, stood the altar of the 

VoL. 1.— 5 


~ 


66 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


goddess. From this platform another flight of broad stairs 
led to the portico, from the height of whose fluted columns 
hung festoons of the richest flowers. On either side the ex- 
tremities of the temple were placed statues of Grecian work- 
manship; and at a little distance from the temple rose the 
triumphal arch crowned with an equestrian statue of Caligula, 
which was flanked by trophies of bronze. In the space before 
the temple a lively throng was assembled, —some seated on 
benches and discussing the politics of the empire, some con- 
versing on the approaching spectacle of the amphitheatre. 
One knot of young men were lauding a new beauty, another 
digcussing the merits of the last play; a third group, more 
stricken in age, were speculating on the chance of the trade 
with Alexandria, and amidst these were many merchants in 
the Eastern costume, whose loose and peculiar robes, painted 
and gemmed slippers, and composed and serious countenances, 
formed a striking contrast to the tunicked forms and animated 
gestures of the Itahans. For that impatient and lively people 
had, as now, a language distinct from speech, —a language of 
signs and motions, inexpressibly significant and vivacious ; 
their descendants retain it, and the learned Jorio hath written 
a most entertaining work upon that species of hieroglyphical 
gesticulation. 

Sauntering through the crowd, Glaucus soon found himself 
amidst a group of his merry and dissipated friends. 

“Ah!” said Sallust, “it is a lustrum since I saw you.” 

“And how have you spent the lustrum? What new dishes 
have you discovered ?” 

“JT have been scientific,” returned Sallust, “and have made 
some experiments in the feeding of lampreys; I confess I 
despair of bringing them to the perfection which our Roman 
ancestors attained.” 

“ Miserable man! and why?” 

“ Because,” returned Sallust, with a sigh, “it is no longer 
lawful to give them a slave to eat. I am very often tempted 
to make away with a very fat carptor [butler] whom I possess, 
and pop him slyly into the reservoir. He would give the fish 
a most oleaginous flavor! But slaves are not slaves nowa- 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 67 


days, and have no sympathy with their masters’ interest, or 
Davus would destroy himself to oblige me!” 

“What news from Rome?” said Lepidus as he languidly 
joined the group. 

“The emperor has been giving a splendid supper to the 
senators,” answered Sallust. 

“He is a good creature,” quoth Lepidus; “they say he 
never sends a man away without granting his request.” 

“Perhaps he would let me kill a slave for my reservoir,” 
returned Sallust, eagerly. 

“Not unlikely,” said Glaucus; “for he who grants a favor 
to one Roman, must always do it at the expense of another. 
Be sure, that for every smile Titus has caused, a hundred eyes 
have wept.” 

“Long live Titus!” cried Pansa, overhearing the emperor’s 
name, as he swept patronizingly through the crowd; “he 
has promised my brother a questorship because he had run 
through his fortune.” 

“‘ And wishes now to enrich himself among the people, my 
Pansa,” said Glaucus. 

“Exactly so,” said Pansa, 

‘That is putting the people to some use,” said Glaucus. 

“To be sure,” returned Pansa. “Well, I must go and look 
after the erarium; it is a little out of repair.” And followed 
by a long train of clients, distinguished from the rest of the 
throng by the togas they wore (for togas, once the sign of 
freedom in a citizen, were now the badge of servility to a 
patron), the eedile fidgeted fussily away. 

‘Poor Pansa;” said Lepidus: “he never has time for 
pleasure. Thank Heaven, I am not an edile!” 

“Ah, Glaucus, how are you, — gay as ever?” said Clodius, 
joining the group. 

«¢ Are you come to sacrifice to Fortune ?” said Sallust. 

“T sacrifice to her every night,” returned the gamester. 

“T do not doubt it. No man has made more victims!” 

“ By Hercules, a biting speech!” cried Glaucus, laughing. 

“The dog’s letter is never out of your mouth, Sallust,” said 
Clodius, angrily; “ you are always snarling.” 


68 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“T may well have the dog’s letter in my mouth, since, 
whenever I play with you, I have the dog’s throw in my 
hand,” returned Sallust. 

“Hist!” said Glaucus, taking a rose from a flower-girl who 
stood beside. 

“The rose is the token of silence,” replied Sallust; “but I 
love only to see it at the supper-table.” 

“Talking of that, Diomed gives a grand feast next week,” 
said Sallust; “are you invited, Glaucus ?” 

“Yes, I received an invitation this morning.” 

“And I too,” said Sallust, drawing a square piece of 
papyrus from his girdle; “I see that he asks us an hour 
earlier than usual: an earnest of something sumptuous.” } 

“Oh, he is rich as Croesus,” said Clodius; “and his bill 
of fare is as long as an epic.” 

‘Well, let us to the baths,” said Glaucus: “this is the time 
when all the world is there; and Fulvius, whom you admire 
so much, is going to read us his last ode.” 

The young men assented readily to the proposal, and they 
strolled to the baths. 

Although the public therme, or baths, were instituted 
rather for the poorer citizens than the wealthy (for the last 
had baths in their own houses), yet to the crowds of all ranks 
who resorted to them it was a favorite place for conversation, 
and for that indolent lounging so dear to a gay and thought- 
less people. The baths at Pompeii differed, of course, in plan 
and construction from the vast and complicated therme of 
Rome; and indeed it seems that in each city of the empire 
there was always some slight modification of arrangement in 
the general architecture of the public baths. This mightily 
puzzles the learned, —as if architects and fashion were not 
capricious before the nineteenth century! Our party entered 
by the principal porch in the Street of Fortune. At the wing 
of the portico sat the keeper of the baths, with his two boxes 
before him, one for the money he received, one for the tickets 

1 The Romans sent tickets of invitation, like the moderns, specifying the 


hour of the repast; which, if the intended feast was to be sumptuous, was 
earlier than usual. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 69 


he dispensed: Round the walls of the portico were seats 
crowded with persons of all ranks; while others, as the regi- 
men of the physicians prescribed, were walking briskly to and 
fro in the portico, stopping every now and then to gaze on the 
innumerable notices of shows, games, sales, exhibitions, which 
were painted or inscribed upon the walls. The general sub- 
ject of conversation was, however, the spectacle announced in 
the amphitheatre; and each new-comer was fastened upon by 
a group eager to know if Pompeii had been so fortunate as to 
produce some monstrous criminal, some happy case of sac- 
rilege or of murder, which would allow the ediles to provide 
aman for the jaws of the hon: all other more common ex- 
hibitions seemed dull and tame when compared with the 
possibility of this fortunate occurrence. 

“For my part,” said one jolly-looking man, who was a gold- 
smith, “I think the emperor, if he is as good as they say, 
might have sent us a Jew.” 

“ Why not take one of the new sect of Nazarenes?” said a 
philosopher. “Iam not cruel; but an atheist, one who denies 
Jupiter himself, deserves no mercy.” 

“T care not how many gods a man likes to believe in,” said 
the goldsmith; “but to deny all gods is something monstrous.” 

“ Yet I fancy,” said Glaucus, “that these people are not 
absolutely atheists. I am told that they believe in a God,— 
nay, in a future state.” 

“Quite a mistake, my dear Glaucus,” said the philosopher. 
“‘T have conferred with them: they laughed in my face when 
I talked of Pluto and Hades.” 

“Q ye gods!” exclaimed the goldsmith in horror; “are 
there any of these wretches in Pompeii ? ” 

“1 know there are a few; but they meet so privately that it 
is impossible to discover ip they are.” 

As Glaucus turned away, a sculptor, who was a great enthu- 
siast in his art, looked after him admiringly. 

“ Ah!” said he, “if we could get him on the arena, there 
would be a model for you! What limbs! what a head! he 
ought to have been a gladiator! A subject, a subject wor- 
thy of our art! Why don’t they give him to the lion?” 


70 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Meanwhile Fulvius, the Roman poet, whom his contempo- 
raries declared immortal, and who, but for this history, would 
never have been heard of in our neglectful age, came eagerly 
up to Glaucus. “Oh, my Athenian, my Glaucus, you have 
come to hear my ode! That is indeed an honor; you, a 
Greek, to whom the very language of common life is poetry. 
How I thank you. It is but a trifle; but if I secure your 
approbation, perhaps I may get an introduction to Titus. Oh, 
Glaucus, a poet without a patron is an amphora without a 
label! the wine may be good, but nobody will laud it. And 
what says Pythagoras ? ‘ Frankincense to the gods, but praise 
to man.’ <A patron, then, is the poet’s priest: he procures 
him the incense and obtains him his believers.” 

‘But all Pompeii is your patron, and every portico an altar 
in your praise.” 

“ Ah! the poor Pompeians are very civil; they love to honor 
merit. But they are only the inhabitants of a petty town, — 
spero meliora / Shall we within ? ” 

“Certainly ; we lose time till we hear your poem.” 

At this instant there was a rush of some twenty persons 
from the baths into the portico; and a slave stationed at the 
door of a small corridor now admitted the poet, Glaucus, 
Clodius, and a troop of the bard’s other friends, into the 
passage. 

“A poor place this, compared with the Roman therme!” 
said Lepidus, disdainfully. 

“Yet is there some taste in the ceiling,” said Glaucus, who 
was in a mood to be pleased with everything, pointing to the 
stars which studded the roof. 

Lepidus shrugged his shoulders, but was too languid to 
reply. 

They now entered a somewhat spacious chamber, which 
served for the purposes of the apodyterium (that is, a place 
where the bathers prepared themselves for their luxurious 
ablutions). The vaulted ceiling was raised from a cornice, 
glowingly colored with motley and grotesque paintings; the 
ceiling itself was panelled in white compartments bordered 
with rich crimson; the unsullied and shining floor was paved 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, T1 


with white mosaics, and along the walls were ranged benches 
for the accommodation of the loiterers. This chamber did not 
possess the numerous and spacious windows which Vitruvius 
attributes to his more magnificent frigidarium. The Pom- 
peians, as all the southern Italians, were fond of banishing the 
light of their sultry skies, and combined in their voluptuous 
associations the idea of luxury with darkness. Two windows 
of glass! alone admitted the soft and shaded ray; and the 
compartment in which one of these casements was placed was 
adorned with a large relief of the destruction of the Titans. 

In this apartment Fulvius seated himself with a magisterial 
air, and his audience gathering round him, encouraged him to 
commence his recital. 

The poet did not require much pressing. He drew forth 
from his vest a roll of papyrus, and after hemming three times, 
as much to command silence as to clear his voice, he began 
that wonderful ode, of which, to the great mortification of the 
author of this history, no single verse can be discovered. 

By the plaudits he received, it was doubtless worthy of his 
fame; and Glaucus was the only listener who did not find it 
excel the best odes of Horace. 

The poem concluded, those who took only the cold bath be- 
gan to undress; they suspended their garments on hooks fas- 
tened in the wail, and receiving, according to their condition, 
either from their own slaves or those of the therme, loose 
robes in exchange, withdrew into that graceful and circular 
building which yet exists, to shame the unlaving posterity of 
the south. The more luxurious departed by another door to 
the tepidarium, a place which was heated to a voluptuous 
warmth, partly by a movable fireplace, principally by a sus- 
pended pavement, beneath which was conducted the caloric 
of the laconicum. 

Here this portion of the intended bathers, after unrobing 
themselves, remained for some time enjoying the artificial 


1 The discoveries at Pompeii have controverted the long-established error 
of the antiquaries, that glass windows were unknown to the Romans. The 
use of them was not, however, common among the middle and inferior classes 
in their private dwellings. 


12 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


warmth of the luxurious air. And this room, as befitted its 
important rank in the long process of ablution, was more 
richly and elaborately decorated than the rest. The arched 
roof was beautifully carved and painted; the windows above, 
of ground glass, admitted but wandering and uncertain rays; 
below the massive cornices were rows of figures in massive 
and bold relief; the walls glowed with crimson, the pavement 
was skilfully tessellated in white mosaics. Here the habitu- 
ated bathers, men who bathed seven times a day, would remain 
in a state of enervate and speechless lassitude, either before 
or (mostly) after the water-bath; and many of these victims of 
the pursuit of health turned their listless eyes on the new- 
comers, recognizing their friends with a nod, but dreading the 
fatigue of conversation. 

From this place the party again diverged, according to their 
several fancies, some to the sudatorium, which answered the 
purpose of our vapor-baths, and thence to the warm-bath itself; 
those more accustomed to exercise, and capable of dispensing 
with so cheap a purchase of fatigue, resorted at once to the 
calidarium or water-bath. 

In order to complete this sketch, and give to the reader an 
adequate notion of this, the main luxury of the ancients, we 
will accompany Lepidus, who regularly underwent the whole 
process, save only the cold-bath which had gone lately out of 
fashion. Being then gradually warmed in the tepidarium, 
which has just been described, the delicate steps of the Pom- 
pelan élégant were conducted to the sudatorium. Here let 
the reader depict to himself the gradual process of the vapor- 
bath, accompanied by an exhalation of spicy perfumes. After 
our bather had undergone this operation, he was seized by his 
slaves, who always awaited him at the baths, and the dews of 
heat were removed by a kind of scraper, which (by the way) 
a modern traveller has gravely declared to be used only to 
remove the dirt, not one particle of which could ever settle on 
the polished skin of the practised bather. Thence, somewhat 
cooled, he passed into the water-bath, over which fresh per- 
fumes were profusely scattered, and on emerging from the 
opposite part of the room, a cooling shower played over his 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 13 


head and form. Then wrapping himself in a light robe, he 
returned once more to the tepidarium, where he found Glaucus, 
who had not encountered the sudatorium; and now the main 
delight and extravagance of the bath commenced. Their 
slaves anointed the bathers from vials of gold, of alabaster, 
or of crystal, studded with profusest gems, and containing the 
rarest unguents gathered from all quarters of the world (the 
number of these smegmata used by the wealthy would filla 
modern volume, especially if the volume were printed by 
a fashionable publisher: Amoracinum, Megalium, Nardum, — 
omne quod exit in wm), while soft music played in an adja- 
cent chamber, and such as used the bath in moderation, re- 
freshed and restored by the grateful ceremony, conversed with — 
all the zest and freshness of rejuvenated life. 

“Blessed be he who invented baths!” said Glaucus, stretch- 
ing himself along one of those bronze seats (then covered with 
soft cushions) which the visitor to Pompeii sees at this day 
in that same tepidarium. ‘Whether he were Hercules or 
Bacchus, he deserved deification.” 

“But tell me,” said a corpulent citizen, who was groaning 
and wheezing under the operation of being rubbed down, — 
“tell me, O Glaucus ! — evil chance to thy hands, O slave! why 
so rough ? —tell me,— ugh! ugh!—are the baths at Rome 
really so magnificent ?”’ Glaucus turned and recognized Diomed, 
though not without some difficulty, so red and so inflamed 
were the good man’s cheeks by the sudatory and the scraping 
he had so lately undergone. “I fancy they must be a great 
deal finer than these, eh ?” 

Suppressing a smile, Glaucus replied, — 

“Tmagine all Pompeii converted into baths, and you will 
then form a notion of the size of the imperial therme of 
Rome; but a notion of the seze only. Imagine every enter- 
tainment for mind and body; enumerate all the gymnastic 
games our fathers invented; repeat all the books Italy and 
Greece have produced; suppose places for all these games, 
admirers for all these works; add to this baths of the vastest 
size, the most complicated construction; intersperse the whole 
with gardens, with theatres, with porticos, with schools, — 


74 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


suppose, in one word, a city of the gods composed but of 
palaces and public edifices, and you may form some faint 
idea of the glories of the great baths of Rome.” 

“By Hercules!” said Diomed, opening his eyes; “why, it 
would take a man’s whole life to bathe!” 

“At Rome it often does so,” replied Glaucus, gravely. 
“There are many who live only at the baths. They repair 
there the first hour in which the doors are opened, and re- 
main till that in which the doors are closed. They seem as 
if they knew nothing of the rest of Rome, as if they despised 
all other existence.” 

“By Pollux! you amaze me.” 

“ven those who bathe only thrice a day contrive to con- 
sume their lives in this occupation. They take their exercise 
in the tennis-court or the porticos to prepare them for the 
first bath ; they lounge into the theatre, to refresh themselves 
after it. They take their prandium under the trees, and 
think over their second bath. By the time it is prepared, 
the prandium is digested. From the second bath they stroll 
into one of the peristyles to hear some new poet recite, or 
into the library to sleep over an old one. Then comes the 
supper, which they still consider but a part of the bath; and 
then a third time they bathe again, as the best place to con- 
verse with their friends.” 

“Per Hercle! but we have their imitators at Pompeii.” 

“Yes, and without their excuse. The magnificent voluptu- 
aries of the Roman baths are happy; they see nothing but 
gorgeousness and splendor; they visit not the squalid parts 
of the city; they know not that there is poverty in the 
world. All Nature smiles for them, and her only frown is 
the last one, which sends them to bathe in Cocytus. Believe 
me, they are your only true philosophers.” 

While Glaucus was thus conversing, Lepidus, with closed 
eyes and scarce perceptible breath, was undergoing all the 
mystic operations, not one of which he ever suffered his at- 
tendants to omit. After the perfumes and the unguents, they 
scattered over him the luxurious powder, which prevented 
apy farther accession of heat; and this being rubbed away by 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. T5 


the smooth surface of the pumice, he began to indue, not the 
garments he had put off, but those more festive ones termed 
“the synthesis,” with which the Romans marked their respect 
for the coming ceremony of supper, if rather, from its hour 
(three o’clock in our measurement of time), it might not be 
more fitly denominated dinner. This done, he at length 
opened his eyes and gave signs of returning life. 

At the same time, too, Sallust betokened by a long yawn 
the evidence of existence. 

“Tt is supper-time,” said the epicure; “you, Glaucus and 
Lepidus, come and sup with me.” 

“ Recollect you are all three engaged to my house next 
week,” cried Diomed, who was mightily proud of the ac- 
quaintance of men of fashion. 

“Ah, ah! we recollect,” said Sallust; “the seat of memory, 
my Diomed, is certainly in the stomach.” 

Passing now once again into the cooler air, and so into the 
street, our gallants of that day concluded the ceremony of a 
Pompeian bath. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


ARBACES COGS HIS DICE WITH PLEASURE, AND WINS THE 
GAME. 


THE evening darkened over the restless city as Apzecides 
took his way to the house of the Egyptian. He avoided the 
more lighted and populous streets; and as he strode onward 
with his head buried in his bosom, and his arms folded within 
his robe, there was something startling in the contrast, which 
his solemn mien and wasted form presented to the thoughtless 
brows and animated air of those who occasionally crossed his 
path. | 

At length, however, a man of a more sober and staid de- 
meanor, and who had twice passed him with a curious but 
doubting look, touched him on the shoulder. 


76 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


“ Apecides!” said he, and he made a rapid sign with his 
hands: it was the sign of the cross. 

“Well, Nazarene,” replied the priest, and his pale face grew 
paler, “ what wouldst thou ? ” 

“Nay,” returned the stranger, “I would not interrupt thy 
meditations ; but the last time we met I seemed not to be so 
unwelcome.” | 

“You are not unwelcome, Olinthus; but I am sad and 
weary: nor am | able this evening to discuss with you those 
themes which are most acceptable to you.” 

“QO backward of heart!” said Olinthus, with bitter fervor; 
“and art thou sad and weary, and wilt thou turn from the 
very springs that refresh and heal ?” 

“QO earth!” cried the young priest, striking his breast pas- 
sionately, “from what regions shall my eyes open to the true 
Olympus, where thy gods really dwell? Am I to believe with 
this man that none whom for so many centuries my fathers 
worshipped have a being ora name? Am I to break down, 
as something blasphemous and profane, the very altars which 
I have deemed most sacred, or am I to think with Arbaces 
— what?” 

He paused, and strode rapidly away in the impatience of 
a man who strives to get rid of himself. But the Nazarene 
was one of those hardy, vigorous, and enthusiastic men by 
whom God in all times has worked the revolutions of earth, 
and those, above all, in the establishment and in the reforma- 
tion of His own religion; men who were formed to convert, 
because formed to endure. It is men of this mould whom 
nothing discourages, nothing dismays; in the fervor of belief 
they are inspired and they inspire. Their reason first kindles 
their passion, but the passion is the instrument they use; they 
force themselves into men’s hearts, while they appear only to 
appeal to their judgment. Nothing is so contagious as enthu- 
siasm; it is the real allegory of the tale of Orpheus: it moves 
stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sin- 
cerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it. 

Olinthus did not then suffer Apzecides thus easily to escape 
him. He overtook and addressed him thus : — 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 17 


“IT do not wonder, Apecides, that I distress you; that I 
shake all the elements of your mind; that you are lost in 
doubt; that you drift here and there in the vast ocean of 
uncertain and benighted thought. I wonder not at this; but 
bear with me a little: watch and pray,—the darkness shall 
vanish, the storm sleep, and God Himself, as He came of 
yore on the sea of Galilee, shall walk over the lulled billows, 
to the delivery of your soul. Ours is a religion jealous in 
its demands, but how infinitely prodigal in its gifts! It 
troubles you for an hour, it repays you by immortality.” 

“Such promises,” said Apeecides, sullenly, “are the tricks 
by which man is ever gulled. Oh, glorious were the promises 
which led me to the shrine of Isis!” 

“ But,” answered the Nazarene, “ask thy reason, can that 
religion be sound which outrages all morality ? You are told 
to worship your gods. What are those gods, even according 
to yourselves, —what their actions, what their attributes ? 
Are they not all represented to you as the blackest of crimi- 
nals? Yet you are asked to serve them as the holiest of 
divinities. Jupiter himself is a parricide and an adulterer. 
What are the meaner deities but imitators of his vices? You 
are told not to murder, but you worship murderers; you are 
told not to commit adultery, and you make your prayers to 
an adulterer. Oh, what is this but a mockery of the holiest 
part of man’s nature, which is faith? Turn now to the God, 
the one, the true God, to whose shrine I would lead you. If 
He seem to you too sublime, too shadowy, for those human 
associations, those touching connections between Creator and 
creature, to which the weak heart clings, contemplate Him in 
his Son, who put on mortality like ourselves. His mortality 
is not indeed declared, like that of your fabled gods, by the 
vices of our nature, but by the practice of all its virtues. In 
Him are united the austerest morals with the tenderest affec- 
tions. If He were but a mere man, He had been worthy to 
become a god. You honor Socrates; he has his sect, his dis- 
ciples, his schools. But what are the doubtful virtues of the 
Athenian, to the bright, the undisputed, the active, the un- 
ceasing, the devoted holiness of Christ? I speak to you now 


78 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


only of His human character. He came in that, as the pattern 
of future ages, to show us the form of virtue which Plato 
thirsted to see embodied. This was the true sacrifice that He 
made for man; but the halo that encircled His dying hour not 
only brightened earth but opened to us the sight of heaven! 
You are touched, you are moved. God works in your heart; 
His spirit is with you. Come, resist not the holy impulse; 
come at once, unhesitatingly. A few of us are now assem- 
bled to expound the Word of God. Come, let me guide you 
to them. You are sad, you are weary. Listen, then, to the 
words of God. ‘Come to me,’ saith He, ‘all ye that are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest!’” 

“T cannot now,” said Apzecides; “ another time.” 

“Now — now!” exclaimed Olinthus, earnestly, and clasping 
him by the arm. 

But Apezcides, yet unprepared for the renunciation of that 
faith, that life, for which he had sacrificed so much, and still 
haunted by the promises of the Egyptian, extricated himself 
forcibly from the grasp; and feeling an effort necessary to 
conquer the irresolution which the eloquence of the Christian 
had begun to effect in his heated and feverish mind, he 
gathered up his robes and fled away with a speed that defied 
pursuit. 

Breathless and exhausted, he arrived at last in a remote and 
sequestered part of the city, and the lone house of the Egyp- 
tian stood before him. As he paused to recover himself, the 
moon emerged from a silver cloud and shone full upon the 
walls of that mysterious habitation. 

No other house was near. The darksome vines clustered far 
and wide in front of the building, and behind it rose a copse 
of lofty forest-trees sleeping in the melancholy moonlight ; 
beyond stretched the dim outline of the distant hills, and 
amongst them the quiet crest of Vesuvius, not then so lofty as 
the traveller beholds it now. 

Apecides passed through the arching vines, and arrived at 
the broad and spacious portico. Before it, on either side of 
the steps, reposed the image of the Egyptian sphinx, and the 
moonlight gave an additional and yet more solemn calm to 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 19 


those large and harmonious and passionless features in which 
the sculptors of that type of wisdom united so much of loveli- 
ness with awe; half-way up the extremities of the steps dark- 
ened the green and massive foliage of the aloe, and the shadow 
of the Eastern palm cast its long and unwaving boughs par- 
tially over the marble surface of the stairs. 

Something there was in the stillness of the place, and the 
strange aspect of the sculptured sphinxes, which thrilled the 
blood of the priest with a nameless and ghostly fear, and he 
longed even for an echo to his noiseless steps as he ascended 
to the threshoid. 

He knocked at the door, over which was wrought an inscrip- 
tion in characters unfamiliar to his eyes; it opened without a 
sound, and a tall Ethiopian slave, without question or saluta- 
tion, motioned to him to proceed. 

The wide hall was lighted by lofty candelabra of elaborate 

bronze, and round the walls were wrought vast hieroglyphics, 
in dark and solemn colors, which contrasted strangely with 
the bright hues and graceful shapes with which the inhabi- 
tants of Italy decorated their abodes. At the extremity of 
the hall, a slave, whose countenance, though not African, was 
darker by many shades than the usual color of the south, 
advanced to meet him. 
_ JT seek Arbaces,” said the priest; but his voice trembled 
even in his own ear. The slave bowed his head in silence, and 
leading Apecides to a wing without the hall, conducted him 
up a narrow staircase, and then traversing several rooms, in 
which the stern and thoughtful beauty of the sphinx still made 
the chief and most impressive object of the priest’s notice, 
Apzcides found himself in a dim and half-lighted chamber, 
in the presence of the Egyptian. 

Arbaces was seated before a small table, on which lay un- 
folded several scrolls of papyrus, impressed with the same 
character as that on the threshold of the mansion. A small 
tripod stood at a little distance, from the incense in which the 
smoke slowly rose. Near this was a vast globe, depicting the 
signs of heaven; and upon another table lay several instru- 
ments, of curious and quaint shape, whose uses were unknown 


80 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


to Apecides. The farther extremity of the room was concealed 
by a curtain, and the oblong window in the roof admitted the 
rays of the moon, mingling sadly with the single lamp which 
burned in the apartment. 

“Seat yourself, Apzecides,” said the Egyptian, without rising. 

The young man obeyed. 

“You ask me,” resumed Arbaces, after a short pause, in 
which he seemed absorbed in thought, —‘“ You ask me, or 
would do so, the mightiest secrets which the soul of man is 
fitted to receive ; it is the enigma of life itself that you desire 
me to solve. Placed like children in the dark, and but for a 
little while, in this dim and confined existence, we shape out 
spectres in the obscurity; our thoughts now sink back into 
ourselves in terror, now wildly plunge themselves into the 
guideless gloom, guessing what it may contain; stretching 
our helpless hands here and there, lest, blindly, we stumble 
upon some hidden danger; not knowing the limits of our 
boundary, now feeling them suffocate us with compressiun, 
now seeing them extend far away till they vanish into eternity. 
In this state all wisdom consists necessarily in the solution of 
two questions, —‘ What are we to believe, and what are we to 
reject?’ These questions you desire to decide ?” 

Apzcides bowed his head in assent. 

“Man must have some belief,” continued the Egyptian, in a 
tone of sadness. ‘He must fasten his hope to something: it 
is our common nature that you inherit when, aghast and terri- 
fied to see that in which you have been taught to place your 
faith swept away, you float over a dreary and shoreless sea of 
incertitude, you cry for help, you ask for some plank to cling 
to, some land, however dim and distant, to attain. Well, 
then, listen. You have not forgotten our conversation of 
to-day ? ” 

“ Forgotten !” 

“T confessed to you that those deities for whom smoke so 
many altars were but inventions. I confessed to you that our 
rites and ceremonies were but mummeries, to delude and lure 
the herd to their proper good. I explained to you that from 
those delusions came the bonds of society, the harmony of the 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 81 


world, the power of the wise; that power is in the obedience 
of the vulgar. Continue we then these salutary delusions; 
if man must have some belief, continue to him that which his 
fathers have made dear to him, and which custom sanctifies 
and strengthens. In seeking a subtler faith for us, whose 
senses are too spiritual for the gross one, let us leave others 
that support which crumbles from ourselves. This is wise; it 
is benevolent.” 

“Proceed.” 

“This being settled,” resumed the Egyptian, “the old land- 
marks being left uninjured for those whom we are about to 
desert, we gird up our loins and depart to new climes of faith. 
Dismiss at once from your recollection, from your thought, 
all that you have believed before. Suppose the mind a blank, 
an unwritten scroll, fit to receive impressions for the first time. 
Look round the world; observe its order, its regularity, its 
design. Something must have created it; the design speaks a 
designer: in that certainty we first touch land. But what is 
that something ?— A god, you cry. Stay! no confused and 
confusing names. Of that which created the world, we know, 
we can know, nothing, save these attributes, — power and un- 
varying regularity ; stern, crushing, relentless regularity, heed- 
ing no individual cases, rolling, sweeping, burning on, no 
matter what scattered hearts, severed from the general mass, 
fall ground and scorched beneath its wheels. The mixture of 
evil with good —the existence of suffering and of crime —in 
all times have perplexed the wise. They created a god; they 
supposed him benevolent. How then came this evil? Why 
did he permit—nay, why invent, why perpetuate—it? To 
account ‘for this, the Persian creates a second spirit, whose 
nature is evil, and supposes a continual war between that 
and the god of good. In our own shadowy and tremendous 
Typhon, the Egyptians image a similar demon. Perplexing 
blunder that yet more bewilders us! folly that arose from the 
vain delusion that makes a palpable, a corporeal, a human 
being, of this unknown power; that clothes the Invisible with 
attributes and a nature similar to the Seen. No: to this de- 
signer let us give a name that does not command our bewil- 

VOL. L —~ 6 


82 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


dering associations, and the mystery becomes more clear; that 
name is Nrcrssity. Necessity, say the Greeks, compels the 
gods. Then why the gods? their agency becomes unneces- 
sary; dismiss them at once. Necessity is the ruler of all we 
see; power, regularity, — these two qualities make its nature. 
Would you ask more? You can learn nothing: whether it be 
eternal, whether it compel us, its creatures, to new careers 
after that darkness which we call death, we cannot tell. There 
leave we this ancient, unseen, unfathomable power, and come 
to that which, to our eyes, is the great minister of its func- 
tions. This we can task more, from this we can learn more: 
its evidence is around us; its name is Nature. The error of 
the sages has been to direct their researches to the attributes 
of necessity, where all is gloom and blindness. Had they 
confined their researches to Nature, what of knowledge might 
we not already have achieved ? Here patience, examination, 
are never directed in vain. We see what we explore; our 
minds ascend a palpable ladder of causes and effects. Nature 
is the great agent of the external universe, and Necessity im- 
poses upon it the laws by which it acts, and imparts to us the 
powers by which we examine; those powers are curiosity and 
memory: their union is reason, their perfection is wisdom. 
Well, then, I examine by the help of these powers this in- 
exhaustible Nature. I examine the earth, the air, the ocean, 
the heaven: I find that all have a mystic sympathy with each 
other; that the moon sways the tides; that the air maintains 
the earth, and is the medium of the life and sense of things ; 
that by the knowledge of the stars we measure the limits of 
the earth; that we portion out the epochs of time; that by 
their pale light we are guided into the abyss of the past; that 
in their solemn lore we discern the destinies of the future. 
And thus, while we know not that which Necessity is, we 
learn, at least, her decrees. And now, what morality do we 
glean from this religion ?— for religion it is. I believe in two 
deities, Nature and Necessity ; I worship the last by reverence, 
the first by investigation. What is the morality my religion 
teaches? This: all things are subject but to general rules; 
the sun shines for the joy of the many —it may bring sorrow 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 83 


to the few; the night sheds sleep on the multitude, but it 
harbors murder as well as rest; the forests adorn the earth, 
but shelter the serpent and the lion; the ocean supports a 
thousand barks, but it engulfs the one. It is only thus for 
the general, and not for the universal benefit that Nature acts, 
and Necessity speeds on her awful course. This is the moral- 
ity of the dread agents of the world; it is mine, who am their 
creature. J would preserve the delusions of priestcraft, for 
they are serviceable to the multitude; I would impart to man 
the arts I discover, the sciences I perfect; I would speed the 
vast career of civilizing lore: in this I serve the mass, I fulfil 
the general law, I execute the great moral that Nature preaches. 
For myself I claim the individual exception; I claim it for the 
wise: satisfied that my individual actions are nothing in the 
great balance of good and evil, satisfied that the product of 
my knowledge can give greater blessings to the mass than my 
desires can operate evil on the few (for the first can extend to 
remotest regions and humanize nations yet unborn), I give to 
the world wisdom, to myself freedom. I enlighten the lives 
of others, and I enjoy my own. Yes; our wisdom is eternal, 
but our life is short: make the most of it while it lasts. Sur- 
render thy youth to pleasure, and thy senses to delight. Soon 
comes the hour when the wine-cup is shattered, and the gar- 
lands shall cease to bloom. Enjoy while you may. Be still, 
O Apeecides, my pupil and my follower! I will teach thee 
the mechanism of Nature, — her darkest and her wildest se- 
crets, the lore which fools call magic, and the mighty mys- 
teries of the stars. By this shalt thou discharge thy duty to 
the mass; by this shalt thou enlighten thy race. But I will 
lead thee also to pleasures of which the vulgar do not dream ; 
and the day which thou givest to men shall be followed by the 
sweet night which thou surrenderest to thyself.” 

As the Egyptian ceased there rose about, around, beneath, 
the softest music that Lydia ever taught, or Ionia ever per- 
fected. It came like a stream of sound, bathing the senses 
unawares; enervating, subduing with delight. It seemed the 
melodies of invisible spirits, such as the shepherd might have 
heard in the golden age, floating through the vales of Thessaly, 


84 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


or in the noontide glades of Paphos. The words which had 
rushed to the lip of Apscides, in answer to the sophistries of 
the Egyptian, died tremblingly away. He felt it as a profana- 
tion to break upon that enchanted strain: the susceptibility 
of his excited nature, the Greek softness and ardor of his 
secret soul, were swayed and captured by surprise. He sank 
on the seat with parted lips and thirsting ear; while in a 
chorus of voices, bland and melting as those which waked 
Psyche in the halls of love, rose the following song; — 


THE HYMN OF EROS. 


By the cool banks where soft Cephisus flows, 

A voice sail’d trembling down the waves of air; 
The leaves blushed brighter in the Teian’s rose, 

The doves couch’d breathless in their summer lair ; 


While from their hands the purple flowerets fell, 
The laughing hours stood listening in the sky ; 

From Pan’s green cave to Aigle’s! haunted cell, 
Heaved the charm’d earth in one delicious sigh. 


“Love, sons of earth! Iam the power of love! 
Eldest of all the gods, with Chaos? born; 

My smile sheds light along the courts above, 
My kisses wake the eyelids of the Morn. 


‘Mine are the stars — there, ever as ye gaze, 
Ye meet the deep spell of my haunting eyes ; 

Mine is the moon — and, mournful if her rays, 
”*T is that she lingers where her Carian lies. 


“The flowers are mine, — the blushes of the rose, 
The violet-charming Zephyr to the shade ; 

Mine the quick light that in the Maybeam glows, 
And mine the day-dream in the lonely glade. 


“Love, sons of earth, for love is earth’s soft lore, 
Look where ye will — earth overflows with ME; 

Learn from the waves that ever kiss the shore, 
And the winds nestling on the heaving sea. 


“ All teaches love !”” — The sweet voice, like a dream, 
Melted in light; yet still the airs above, 

The waving sedges, and the whispering stream, 
And the green forest rustling, murmur’d, “ Love |” 


1 The fairest of the Naiads. 2 Hesiod. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 85 


As the voices died away, the Egyptian seized the hand 
of Apecides, and led him, wandering, intoxicated, yet half- 
reluctant, across the chamber towards the curtain at the far 
end; and now, from behind that curtain, there seemed to burst 
a thousand sparkling stars; the veil itself, hitherto dark, was 
now lighted by these fires behind into the tenderest blue of 
heaven. It represented heaven itself, — such a heaven as in 
the nights of June might have shone down over the streams 
of Castaly. Here and there were painted rosy and aerial 
clouds, from which smiled, by the limnev’s art, faces of divin- 
est beauty, and on which reposed the shapes of which Phidias 
and Apelles dreamed. And the stars which studded the trans- 
parent azure rolled rapidly as they shone, while the music, 
that again woke with a livelier and lighter sound, seemed to 
imitate the melody of the joyous spheres. 

“Oh! what miracle is this, Arbaces?” said Apecides in 
faltering accents. “ After having denied the gods, art thou 
about to reveal to me—”’ 

“Their pleasures!’ interrupted Arbaces, in a tone so differ- 
ent from its usual cold and tranquil harmony that Apeecides 
started, and thought the Egyptian himself transformed; and 
now, as they neared the curtain, a wild, a loud, an exulting 
melody burst from behind its concealment. With that sound 
the veil was rent in twain, it parted, it seemed to vanish 
into air; and a scene, which no Sybarite ever more than 
rivalled, broke upon the dazzled gaze of the youthful priest. 
A vast banquet-room stretched beyond, blazing with countless 
lights, which filled the warm air with the scents of frankin- 
cense, of jasmine, of violets, of myrrh; all that the most odor- 
ous flowers, all that the most costly spices could distil, seemed 
vathered into one ineffable and ambrosial essence: from the 
light columns that sprang upwards to the airy roof, hung 
draperies of white, studded with golden stars. At the ex- 
tremities of the room two fountains cast up a spray, which, 
catching the rays of the roseate lhght, glittered lke countless 
diamonds. In the centre of the room as they entered there 
rose slowly from the floor, to the sound of unseen minstrelsy, 
a table spread with all the viands which sense ever devoted to 


86 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


fancy, and vases of that lost Myrrhine fabric,! so glowing in 
its colors, so transparent in its material, were crowned with the 
exotics of the East. The couches, to which this table was the 
centre, were covered with tapestries of azure and gold; and 
from invisible tubes in the vaulted roof descended showers 
of fragrant waters, that cooled the delicious air, and contended 
with the lamps, as if the spirits of wave and fire disputed 
which element could furnish forth the most delicious odors. 
And now, from behind the snowy draperies, trooped such 
forms as Adonis beheld when he lay on the lap of Venus. 
They came, some with garlands, others with lyres; they sur- 
rounded the youth; they led his steps to the banquet; they 
flung the chaplets round him in rosy chains. The earth, 
the thought of earth, vanished from his soul. He imagined 
himself in a dream, and suppressed his breath lest he should 
wake too soon; the senses, to which he had never yielded as 
yet, beat in his burning pulse, and confused his dizzy and reel- 
ing sight. And while thus amazed and lost, once again, bu% 
in brisk and Bacchiec measures, rose the magic strain :— 


ANACREONTIC. 


In the veins of the calyx foams and glows 
The blood of the mantling vine, 
But oh, in the bowl of Youth there glows 
A Lesbian, more divine! 
Bright, bright, 
As the liquid light, 
Its waves through thine eyelids shine ! 


Fill up, fill up, to the sparkling brim, 
The juice of the young Lyeus ; 2 
The grape is the key that we owe to him 
From the jail of the world to free us. 
Drink, drink! 
What need to shrink, 
When the lamps alone can see us ? 


1 Which, however, was possibly the porcelain of China, though this is 4 
matter which admits of considerable dispute. 
2 Name of Bacchus, from Av, to unbind, to release. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 87 


Drink, drink, as I quaff from thine eyes 
The wine of a softer tree ; 
Give the smiles to the god of the grape, — thy sighs, 
Beloved one, give to me. 
Turn, turn, 
My glances burn, 
And thirst for a look from thee! 


As the song ended, a group of three maidens, entwined with 
a chain of starred flowers, and who, while they imitated, might 
have shamed the Graces, advanced towards him in the gliding 
measures of the Ionian dance, such as the Nereids wreathed 
in moonlight on the yellow sands of the Algean wave; such as 
Cytherea taught her handmaids in the marriage-feast of Psyche 
and her son. 

Now approaching, they wreathed their chaplet round his 
head; now kneeling, the youngest of the three proffered him 
the bowl, from which the wine of Lesbos foamed and sparkled. 
The youth resisted no more; he grasped the intoxicating cup ; 
the blood mantled fiercely through his veins. He sank upon 
the breast of the nymph who sat beside him, and turning with 
swimming eyes to seek for Arbaces, whom he had lost in the 
whirl of his emotions, he beheld him seated beneath a canopy 
at the upper end of the table, and gazing upon him with a 
smile that encouraged him to pleasure. He beheld him, but 
not as he had hitherto seen, with dark and sable garments, 
with a brooding and solemn brow: a robe that dazzled the 
sight, so studded was its whitest surface with gold and gems, 
blazed upon his majestic form; white roses, alternated with 
the emerald and the ruby, and shaped tiara-like, crowned his 
raven locks. He appeared, like Ulysses, to have gained the 
glory of a second youth; his features seemed to have ex- 
changed thought for beauty, and he towered amidst the loveli- 
ness that surrounded him, in all the beaming and relaxing 
benignity of the Olympian god. | 

“‘ Drink, feast, love, my pupil!” said he; “blush not that 
thou art passionate and young. That which thou art, thou 
feelest in thy veins; that which thou shalt be, survey!” 

With this he pointed to a recess, and the eyes of Apzcides, 


88 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


following the gesture, beheld on a pedestal, placed between the 
statues of Bacchus and Idalia, the form of a skeleton. 

“Start not,” resumed the Egyptian; “that friendly guest 
admonishes us but of the shortness of life. From its jaws I 
hear a voice that summons us to ENJOY.” 

As he spoke, a group of nymphs surrounded the statue; they 
laid chaplets on its pedestal, and while the cups were emptied 
and refilled at that glowing board, they sang the following 
strain : — 


BACCHIC HYMNS TO THE IMAGE OF DEATH. 


I. 


Thou art in the land of the shadowy Host, 
Thou that didst drink and love : 
By the Solemn River, a gliding ghost, 
But thy thought is ours above! 
If memory yet can fly 
Back to the golden sky, 
And mourn the pleasures lost ! 
By the ruin’d hall these flowers we lay, 
Where thy soul once held its palace ; 
When the rose to thy scent and sight was gay, 
And the smile was in the chalice, 
And the cithara’s silver voice 
Could bid thy heart rejoice 
When night eclipsed the day. 


Here a new group, advancing, turned the tide of the music 
into a quicker and more joyous strain : — 


II. 


Death, death is the gloomy shore 
Where we all sail : 

Soft, soft, thou gliding oar ; 
Blow soft, sweet gale ! 

Chain with bright wreaths the Hours; 
Victims if all, 

Ever, ’mid song and flowers, 
Victims should fall! 


Pausing for a moment, yet quicker and quicker danced the 
silver-footed music: — 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETDL. 89 


Since Life ’s so short, we ’Il live to laugh, 
Ah, wherefore waste a minute ! 

If youth ’s the cup we yet can quaff, 
Be love the pearl within it! 


A third band now approached with brimming cups, which 
they poured in libation upon that strange altar; and once 
more, slow and solemn, rose the changeful melody :— 


III. 


Thou art welcome, Guest of gloom, 
From the far and fearful sea ! 
When the last rose sheds its bloom, 
Our board shall be spread with thee! 
All hail, dark Guest! 
Who hath so fair a plea 
Our weicome guest to be, 
As thou, whose solemn hall 
At last shall feast us all 
In the dim and dismal coast ? 
Long yet be we the Host ? 
And thou, Dead Shadow, thou, 
All joyless though thy brow, 
Thou — but our passing Guest! 


At this moment, she who sat beside Apzcides suddenly took 
up the song: — 


IV. 


Happy is yet our doom, 
The earth and the sun are ours! 
And far from the dreary tomb 
Speed the wings of the rosy Hours: 
Sweet is for thee the bow], 
Sweet are thy looks, my love; 
I fly to thy tender soul, 
As the bird to its mated dove ! 
Take me, ah, take ! 
Clasp’d to thy guardian breast, 
Soft let me sink to rest: 
But wake me — ah, wake! 
And tell me with words and sighs, 
But more with thy melting eyes, 
That my sun is not set ; 
That the Torch is not quench’d at the Urn, 
That we love, and we breathe, and burn, 
Tell me — thou loy’st me yet! 


BOR RRS DE 


Lucus tremiscit. Tota succusso solo 
Nutavit aula, dubia quo pondus daret, 
Ac fluctuanti similis. —Smneca: Zhyestes, v. 696. 


Trembled the grove. Earth quivered ; with the shock 
Quaked all the nodding hall, as doubtful where 
Ponderous to fall, — and heaving like a wave. 


CHAPTER I. 


‘A FLASH HOUSE ” IN POMPEII — AND THE GENTLEMEN OF 
THE CLASSIC RING. 


To one of those parts of Pompeii, which were tenanted not 
by the lords of pleasure, but by its minions and its victims; 
the haunt of gladiators and prize-fighters; of the vicious and 
the penniless; of the savage and obscene; the Alsatia of an 
ancient city — we are now transported. 

It was a large room that opened at once on the confined and 
crowded lane. Before the threshold was a group of men, 
whose iron and well-strung muscles, whose short and Hercu- 
lean necks, whose hardy and reckless countenances, indicated 
the champions of the arena. On a shelf, without the shop, 
were ranged jars of wine and oil; and right over this was in- 
serted in the wall a coarse painting which exhibited gladiators 
drinking, — so ancient and so venerable is the custom of signs! 
Within the room were placed several small tables, arranged 
somewhat in the modern fashion of “ boxes,” and round these 
were seated several knots of men, some drinking, some play- 
ing at dice, some at that more skilful game called “ duodecim 
seripte,’ which certain of the blundering learned have mis- 
taken for chess, though it rather, perhaps, resembled back- 
gammon of the two, and was usually, though not always, 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 91 


played by the assistance of dice. The hour was in the early 
forenoon, and nothing better, perhaps, than that unseasonable 
time itself denoted the habitual indolence of these tavern 
loungers. Yet, despite the situation of the house and the 
character of its inmates, it indicated none of that sordid 
squalor which would have characterized a similar haunt in a 
modern city. The gay disposition of all the Pompeians, who 
sought, at least, to gratify the sense even where they neg- 
lected the mind, was typified by the gaudy colors which deco- 
rated the walls, and the shapes, fantastic but not inelegant, 
in which the lamps, the drinking-cups, the commonest house- 
hold utensils, were wrought. 

“By Pollux!” said one of the gladiators, as he leaned 
against the wall of the threshold, “the wine thou sellest us, 
old Silenus,” —and as he spoke he slapped a portly personage 
on the back, ——“is enough to thin the best blood in one’s 
veins.” 

The man thus caressingly saluted, and whose bared arms, 
white apron, and keys and napkin tucked carelessly within his 
girdle, indicated him to be the host of the tavern, was already 
passed into the autumn. of his years; but his form was still 
so robust and athletic, that he might have shamed even the 
sinewy shapes beside him, save that the muscles had seeded, — 
as it were, into flesh, that the cheeks were swelled and 
bloated, and the increasing stomach threw into shade the vast 
and massive chest which rose above it. 

“None of thy scurrilous blusterings with me,” growled the 
gigantic landlord, in the gentle semi-roar of an insulted tiger ; 
“my wine is good enough for a carcass which shall so soon 
soak the dust of the spoliarium.” } 

“Croakest thou thus, old raven!” returned the gladiator, 
laughing scornfully ; “thou shalt lve to hang thyself with 
despite when thou seest me win the palm crown; and when I 
get the purse at the amphitheatre, as I certainly shall, my 
first vow to Hercules shall be to forswear thee and thy vile 
potations evermore.” 


1 The place to which the killed or mortally wounded were dragged from 
the arena. 


92 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Hear to him; hear to this modest Pyrgopolinices! He 
has certainly served under Bombochides Cluninstaridysar- 
chides,” cried the host. “Sporus, Niger, Tetraides, he de- 
clares he shall win the purse from you. Why, by the gods! 
each of your muscles is strong enough to stifle all his body, or 
I know nothing of the arena!” 

“Ha!” said the gladiator, coloring with rising fury, “our 
lanista would tell-a different story.” 

“What story could he tell against me, vain Lydon?” said 
Tetraides, frowning. 

‘Or me, who have conquered in fifteen fights ?” said the 
gigantic Niger, stalking up to the gladiator. 

“Or me?” grunted Sporus, with eyes of fire. 

“Tush!” said Lydon, folding his arms, and regarding his 
rivals with a reckless air of defiance. “The time of trial will 
soon come; keep your valor till then.” 

“Ay, do,” said the surly host; “and if I press down my 
thumb to save you, may the Fates cut my thread!” 

“Your rope, you mean,” said Lydon, sneeringly : “here is a 
sesterce to buy one.” 

The Titan wine-vender seized the hand extended to him, and 
eriped it in so stern a vice that the blood spirted from the 
fingers’ ends over the garments of the bystanders. 

They set up a savage laugh. 

“JT will teach thee, young braggart, to play the Macedonian 
with me! I am no puny Persian, I warrant thee! What, 
man, have I not fought twenty years in the ring, and never 
lowered my arms once? And have I not received the rod from 
the editor’s own hand as a sign of victory, and as a grace to 
retirement on my laurels? And am I now to be lectured by 
a boy?” So saying, he flung the hand from him in scorn. 

Without changing a muscle, but with the same smiling face 
with which he had previously taunted mine host, did the 
gladiator brave the painful grasp he had undergone. But no 
sooner was his hand released, than, crouching for one moment 
as a wild-cat crouches, you might see his hair bristle on his 


1 “Miles Gloriosus,” Act I.; as much as to say, in modern phrase, “He 
has served under Bombastes Furioso.” 


-_ 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 93 


head and beard, and with a fierce and shrill yell he sprang on 
the throat of the giant, with an impetus that threw him, vast 
and sturdy as he was, from his balance; and down, with the 
crash’ of a falling rock, he fell, while over him fell also his 
ferocious foe. 

Our host, perhaps, had had no need of the rope so kindly 
recommended to him by Lydon, had he remained three minutes 
longer in that position. But, summoned to his assistance by 
the noise of his fall, a woman, who had hitherto kept in an 
inner apartment, rushed to the scene of battle. This new ally 
was in herself a match for the gladiator; she was tall, lean, 
and with arms that could give other than soft embraces. In 
fact, the gentle helpmate of Burbo the wine-seller had, like 
himself, fought in the lists,’ nay, under the emperor’s eye. 


And Burbo himself —Burbo, the unconquered in the field, 


according to report — now and then yielded the palm to his 
soft Stratonice. This sweet creature no sooner saw the immi- 
nent peril that awaited her worse half, than without other 
weapons than those with which Nature had provided her, she 
darted upon the incumbent gladiator, and, clasping him round 
the waist with her long and snake-like arms, hfted him by a 
sudden wrench from the body of her husband, leaving only his 
hands still clinging to the throat of his foe. So have we seen 
a dog snatched by the hind legs from the strife with a fallen 
rival in the arms of some envious groom; so have we seen one 
half of him high in air, passive and offenceless, while the 
other half — head, teeth, eyes, claws — seemed buried and en- 
eulfed in the mangled and prostrate enemy. Meanwhile, the 
gladiators, lapped, and pampered, and glutted upon blood, 
crowded delightedly round the combatants, their nostrils dis- 
tended, their lips grinning, their eyes gloatingly fixed on the 
bloody throat of the one and the indented talons of the other. 

“ Habet! habet/ [he has got it!] ” cried they, with a sort of 
yell, rubbing their nervous hands. 

“Non habeo, ye liars ! [I have not got it!]” shouted the host, 
as with a mighty effort he wrenched himself from those deadly 


1 Not only did women sometimes fight in the amphitheatres, but even 
those of noble birth participated in that meek ambition. 


94 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


hands, and rose to his feet, breathless, panting, lacerated, 
bloody ; and fronting, with reeling eyes, the glaring look and 
grinning teeth of his baffled foe, now struggling (but struggling 
with disdain) in the gripe of the sturdy amazon. , 

“Fair play!” cried the gladiators: “one to one;” and 
crowding round Lydon and the woman, they separated our 
pleasing host from his courteous guest. 

But Lydon, feeling ashamed at his present position, and 
endeavoring in vain to shake off the grasp of the virago, 
slipped his hand into his girdle and drew forth a short knife. 
So menacing was his look, so brightly gleamed the blade, that 
Stratonice, who was used only to that fashion of battle which 
we moderns call the pugilistic, started back in alarm, 

“OQ gods!” cried she, “ the ruffian; he has concealed weap- 
ons! Isthat fair? Is that like a gentleman and a gladiator? 
No, indeed, I scorn such fellows.” With that she contemp- 
tuously turned her back on the gladiator, and hastened to 
examine the condition of her husband. 

But he, as much inured to the constitutional exercises as an 
English bull-dog is to a contest with a more gentle antagonist, 
had already recovered himself. The purple hues receded from 
the crimson surface of his cheek, the veins of the forehead 
retired into their wonted size. He shook himself with a com- 
placent grunt, satisfied that he was still alive, and then looking 
at his foe from head to foot with an air of more approbation 
than he had ever bestowed upon him before, — 

“ By Castor!” said he, “thou art a stronger fellow than I 
took thee for. I see thou art a man of merit and virtue; give 
me thy hand, my hero.” 

“ Jolly old Burbo!” cried the gladiators, applauding; “stanch 
to the backbone. Give him thy hand, Lydon.” 

“‘ Qh, to be sure,” said the gladiator; “ but now I have tasted 
his blood, I long to lap the whole.” 

“By Hercules!” returned the host, quite ahrdegeat “that is 
the true gladiator feeling. Pollux! to think what good train- 
ing may make a man; why, a beast could not be fiercer !” 

“A beast! Oh, dullard! we beat the beasts hollow!” cried 
Tetraides. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 95 


“Well, well,” said Stratonice, who was now employed in 
smoothing her hair and adjusting her dress, “if ye are all good 
_ friends again, I recommend you to be quiet and orderly; for 
some young noblemen, your patrons and backers, have sent to 
say they will come here to pay you a visit: they wish to see 
you more at their ease than at the schools, before they make 
up their bets on the great fight at the amphitheatre. So they 
always come to my house for that purpose: they know we 
only receive the best gladiators in Pompeii; our society is 
very select, praised be the gods!” 

“ Yes,” continued Burbo, drinking off a bowl, or rather a pail 
of wine, “aman who has won my laurels can only encourage 
the brave. liydon, drink, my boy; may you have an honor- 
able old age like mine.” 

“Come here,” said Stratonice, drawing her husband to her 
affectionately by the ears, in that caress which Tibullus has 
so prettily described, — “ come here.” 

“ Not so hard, she-wolf! thou art worse than the gladiator,” 
murmured the huge jaws of Burbo. 

“ Hist!” said she, whispering him; “Calenus has just stole 
in, disguised, by the back way. I hope he has brought the 
sesterces.” 

“Ho! ho! I will join him,” said Burbo; “ meanwhile, I say, 
keep a sharp eye on the cups: attend to the score. Let them 
not cheat thee, wife ; they are heroes, to be sure, but then they 
are arrant rogues: Cacus was nothing to them.” 

“‘ Never fear me, fool!” was the conjugal reply ; and Burbo, 
satisfied with the dear assurance, strode through the apart- 
ment and sought the penetralia of his house. 

“So those soft patrons are coming to look at our mus- 
cles,” said Niger. “Who sent to previse thee of it, my 
mistress ? ” 

“Lepidus. He brings with him Clodius, the surest better in 
Pompeii, and the young Greek Glaucus.” 

“ A wager on a wager,” cried Tetraides; “Clodius bets on 
me, for twenty sesterces! What say you, Lydon?” 

“ He bets on me/” said Lydon. 

“No, on me/” grunted Sporus. 


96 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


¢ Dolts! do you think he would prefer any of you to Niger ? ” 
said the athletic, thus modestly naming himself. 

“Well, well,” said Stratonice, as she pierced a huge am- 
phora for her guests, who had now seated themselves before 
one of the tables, “ great men and brave, as ye all think your- 
selves, which of you will fight the Numidian lion in case no 
malefactor should be found to deprive you of the option ?” 

‘“T who have escaped your arms, stout Stratonice,” said 
Lydon, “might safely, I think, encounter the lion.” 

“But tell me,” said Tetraides, “where is that pretty young 
slave of yours, —the blind girl, with bright eyes? I have not 
seen her for a long time.” 

“Oh, she is too delicate for you, my son of Neptune,’ ? said 
the hostess, “and too nice even for us, I think. We send 
her into the town to sell flowers and sing to the ladies; she 
makes us more money so than she would by waiting on you. 
Besides, she has often other employments which lie under the 
rose.” 

“Other employments!” said Niger; “why, she is too young 
for them.” 

“Silence, beast!” said Stratonice; “you think there is no 
play but the Corinthian. If Nydia were twice the age she is 
at present, she would be equally fit for Vesta, poor girl!” 

“But, hark ye, Stratonice,” said Lydon; “how didst thou 
come by so gentle and delicate a slave? She were more meet 
for the handmaid of some rich matron of Rome than for 
thee.” 

“That is true,” returned Stratonice; “and some day or 
other I shall make my fortune by selling her. How came I by 
Nydia, thou askest ?” 

“Ay!” 

“ Why, thou seest, my slave Staphyla—thou rememberest 
Staphyla, Niger?” 

“¢ Ay, a large-handed wench, with a face like a comic mask. 
How should I forget her, by Pluto, whose handmaid she doubt- 
less is at this moment!” 

‘Tush, brute! Well, Staphyla died one day, and a great 


1 Son of Neptune, —a Latin phrase for a boisterous, ferocious fellow. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. . 97 


loss she was to me, and I went into the market to buy me 
another slave. But, by the gods! they were all grown so dear 
since I had bought poor Staphyla, and money was so scarce, 
that I was about to leave the place in despair, when a mer- 
chant plucked me by the robe. ‘ Mistress,’ said he, ‘dost thou 
want a slave cheap? I have a child to sell, —abargain. She 
is but little, and almost an infant, it is true; but she is quick 
and quiet, docile and clever, sings well, and is of good blood, 
J assure you.’ ‘Of what country ?’ said I. ‘Thessalian.? Now 
I knew the Thessalians were acute and gentle; so I said I 
would see the girl. I found her just as you see her now, 
searcely smaller and scarcely younger in appearance. She 
looked patient and resigned enough, with her hands crossed 
on her bosom, and her eyes downcast. I asked the merchant 
his price. It was moderate, and I bought her at once. The 
merchant brought her to my house, and disappeared in an 
instant. Well, my friends, guess my astonishment when I 
found she was blind! Ha! ha! a clever fellow that mer- 
chant! JI ran at once to the magistrates, but the rogue was 
already gone from Pompeii. So I was forced to go home in 
a very ill humor, I assure you; and the poor girl felt the 
effects of it too. But it was not her fault that she was blind, 
for she had been so from her birth. By degrees we got recon- 
ciled to our purchase. True, she had not the strength of 
Staphyla, and was of very little use in the house, but she could 
soon find her way about the town as well as if she had the 
eyes of Argus; and when one morning she brought us home 
a handful of sesterces, which she said she had got from selling 
some flowers she had gathered in our poor little garden, we 
thought the gods had sent her to us. So from that time we 
let her go out as she likes, filing her basket with flowers, 
which she wreathes into garlands after the Thessalian fashion, 
which pleases the gallants ; and the great people seem to take 
a fancy to her, for they always pay her more than they do any 
other flower-girl, and she brings all of it home to us, which 
is more than any other slave would do. So I work for my- 
self, but I shall soon afford from her earnings to buy me a 
second Staphyla; doubtless the Thessalian kidnapper had 
VOL. I.—7 


98 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


stolen the blind girl from gentle parents.1 Besides her skill 
in the garlands, she sings and plays on the-cithara, which also 
brings money, and lately — but that is a secret.” 

“ That is a secret! What!” cried Lydon, “art thou turned 
sphinx ?” 

“Sphinx, no! Why sphinx ?” 

“Cease thy gabble, good mistress, and bring us our meat; I 
am hungry,” said Sporus, impatiently. 

“ And I, too,” echoed the grim Niger, whetting his knife on 
the palm of his hand. 

The amazon stalked away to the kitchen, and soon returned 
with a tray laden with large pieces of meat half-raw: for so, 
as now, did the heroes of the prize-fight imagine they best 
sustained their hardihood and ferocity; they drew round the 
table with the eyes of famished wolves; the meat vanished, 
the wine flowed. So leave we those important personages of 
elassic life to follow the steps of Burbo. 


CHAPTER IL 
TWO WORTHIES. 


In the earlier times of Rome the priesthood was a pro- 
fession, not of lucre but of honor. It was embraced by the 
noblest citizens; it was forbidden to the plebians. After- 
wards, and long previous to the present date, it was equally 
open to all ranks; at least, that part of the profession which 
embraced the flamens, or priests, — not of religion generally, 
but of peculiar gods. Even the priest of Jupiter (the Flamen 
Dialis), preceded by a lictor, and entitled by his office to the 
entrance of the senate, at first the especial dignitary of the 
patricians, was subsequently the choice of the people. The 


1 The Thessalian slave-merchants were celebrated for purloining persons 
of birth and education: they did not always spare those of their own country. 
Aristophanes sneers bitterly at that people (proverbially treacherous) for 
their unquenchable desire of gain by this barter of flesh. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL he 


less national and less honored deities were usually served by ~ 
plebeian ministers ; and many embraced the profession, as now 
the Roman Catholic Christians enter the monastic fraternity, 
less from the impulse of devotion than the suggestions of a 
calculating poverty. Thus Calenus, the priest of Isis, was of 
the lowest origin. His relations, though not his parents, were 
freedmen. He had received from them a liberal education, 
and from his father a small patrimony, which he had soon ex- 
hausted. He embraced the priesthood as a last resource from 
distress. Whatever the State emoluments of the sacred pro- 
fession, which at that time were probably small, the officers 
of a popular temple could never complain of the profits of 
their calling. There is no profession so lucrative as that 
which practises on the superstition of the multitude. 

Calenus had but one surviving relative at Pompeii, and that 
was Burbo. Various dark and disreputable ties, stronger than 
those of blood, united together their hearts and interests; and 
often the minister of Isis stole disguised and furtively from 
the supposed austerity of his devotions, and gliding through 
the back door of the retired gladiator, —a man infamous alike 
by vices and by profession, — rejoiced to throw off the last 
rag of an hypocrisy which but for the dictates of avarice, his 
ruling passion, would at all times have sat clumsily upon a 
nature too brutal for even the mimicry of virtue. 

Wrapped in one of those large mantles which came in use 
among the Romans in proportion as they dismissed the toga, 
whose ample folds well concealed the form, and in which a 
sort of hood (attached to it) afforded no less a security to the 
features, Calenus now sat in the small and private chamber of 
the wine-cellar, whence a small passage ran at once to that 
back entrance with which nearly all the houses of Pompeii 
were furnished. 

Opposite to him sat the sturdy Burbo, carefully counting on 
a table between them a little pile of coins which the priest 
had just poured from his purse; for purses were as common 
then as now, with this difference, — they were usually better 
furnished. 

“You see,” said Calenus, “that we pay you handsomely, 


100 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


and you ought to thank me for recommending you to so 
advantageous a market.” 

“T do, my cousin, I do,” replied Burbo, affectionately, as he 
swept the coins into a leathern receptacle, which he then de- 
posited in his girdle, drawing the buckle round his capacious 
waist more closely than he was wont to do in the lax hours of 
his domestic avocations. “And by Isis, Pisis, and Nisis, or 
whatever other gods there may be in Egypt, my little Nydia is 
a very Hesperides, —a garden of gold to me.” 

“She sings well, and plays like a muse,” returned Calenus ; 
“those are virtues that he who employs me always pays 
liberally.” 

“ He is a god,” cried Burbo, enthusiastically; “every rich 
man who is generous deserves to be worshipped. But come, a 
cup of wine, old friend; tell me more about it. What does she 
do? She is frightened, talks of her oath, and reveals nothing.” 

“Nor will I, by my right hand! I, too, have taken that 
terrible oath of secrecy.” 

“Oath! what are oaths to men like us?” 

“True, oaths of a common fashion; but this!” and the 
stalwart priest shuddered as he spoke. “ Yet,” he continued, 
in emptying a huge cup of unmixed wine, “I will own to thee 
that it is not so much the oath that I dread as the vengeance 
of him who proposed it. By the gods! he is a mighty sorcerer, 
and could draw my confession from the moon, did I dare to 
make it to her. Talk no more of this. By Pollux! wild as 
those banquets are which I enjoy with him, I am never quite 
at my ease there. I love, my boy, one jolly hour with thee, 
and one of the plain, unsophisticated, laughing girls that I 
meet in this chamber, all smoke-dried though it be, better than 
whole nights of those magnificent debauches.” 

“Fo! sayest thou so? ‘To-morrow night, please the gods, 
we will have then a snug carousal.” 

‘With all my heart,” said the priest, rubbing his hands ana 
drawing himself nearer to the table. 

At this moment they heard a slight noise at the door, as of 
one feeling the handle. The priest lowered the hood over his 
head. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 101 


“Tush!” whispered the host, “it is but the blind girl,” as 
Nydia opened the door and entered the apartment. 

“io! girl, and how durst thou? Thou lookest pale, — thou 
hast kept late revels. No matter, the young must be always 
the young,” said Burbo, encouragingly. 

The girl made no answer, but she dropped on one of the seats 
with an air of lassitude. Her color went and came rapidly: 
she beat the floor impatiently with her small feet, then she 
suddenly raised her face, and said with a determined voice, — 

“Master, you may starve me if you will, you may beat me, 
you may threaten me with death; but I will go no more to 
that unholy place!” 

“‘ How, fool!” said Burbo, in a savage voice, and his heavy 
brows met darkly over his fierce and bloodshot eyes; “how, 
rebellious! Take care!” 

“T have said it,” said the poor girl, crossing her hands on 
her breast. 

‘What! my modest one, sweet vestal, thou wilt go no more! 
Very well; thou shalt be carried.” 

“J will raise the city with my cries,” said she, passionately ; 
and the color mounted to her brow. 

‘We will take care of that, too; thou shalt go gagged.” 

“Then may the gods help me!” said Nydia, rising; “I will 
appeal to the magistrates.” 

“ Thine oath remember /” said a hollow voice, as for the first 
time Calenus joined in the dialogue. 

At those words a trembling shook the frame of the unfortu- 
nate girl; she clasped her hands imploringly. “ Wretch that 
Iam!” she cried, and burst violently into sobs. 

Whether or not it was the sound of that vehement sorrow 
which brought the gentle Stratonice to the spot, her grisly 
form at this moment appeared in the chamber. 

“How now? what hast thou been doing with my bs 
brute ?” said she, angrily, to Burbo. 

“Be quiet, wife,” said he, in a tone half sullen, half timid; 
“vou want new girdles and fine clothes, do you? Well, then, 
take care of your slave, or you may want them long. Ve 
capiti two, — vengeance on thy head, wretched one!” 


102 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


‘What is this?” said the hag, looking from one to the 
other. 

Nydia started as by a sudden impulse from the wall against 
which she had leaned; she threw herself at the feet of Strato- 
nice; she embraced her knees, and looking up at her with 
those sightless but touching eyes, — 

“Oh, my mistress,” sobbed she, “you are a woman; you 
have had sisters; you have been young like me: feel for me, 
save me! I will go to those horrible feasts no more!” 

“Stuff!” said the hag, dragging her up rudely by one of 
those delicate hands, fit for no harsher labor than that of weav- 
ing the flowers which made her pleasure or her trade; “stuff! 
these fine scruples are not for slaves.” 

“ Hark ye,” said Burbo, drawing forth his purse and chink- 
ing its contents; “you hear this music, wife; by Pollux! if 
you do not break in yon colt with a tight rein, you will hear it 
no more.” 

“The girl is tired,” said Stratonice, nodding to Calenus; 
“she will be more docile when you next want her.” 

“ You! you! who is here?” cried Nydia, casting her eyes 
round the apartment with so fearful and straining a survey, 
that Calenus rose in alarm from his seat. 

“She must see with those eyes!” muttered he. 

“Who is here? Speak, in Heaven’s name! Ah, if you were 
blind like me, you would be less cruel,” said she; and she again 
burst into tears. 

“Take her away,” said Burbo, impatiently; “I hate these 
whimperings.” 

“Come!” said Stratonice, pushing the poor child by the 
shoulders. 

Nydia drew herself aside, with an air to which resolution 
gave dignity. 

“Hear me,” she said; “I have served you faithfully, —I, 
who was brought up— Ah, my mother, my poor mother! 
didst thou dream I should come to this?” She dashed the 
tears from her eyes, and proceeded: “Command me in aught 
else, and I will obey; but I tell you now, hard, stern, inexora- 
ble as you are, —I tell you that I will go there no more; or, 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 108 


if I am forced there, that I will implore the mercy of the pra. 
tor himself: I have said it. Hear me, ye gods: I swear!” 

The hag’s eyes glowed with fire; she seized the child by the 
hair with one hand, and raised on high the other, —that for- 
midable right hand, the least blow of which seemed capable to 
crush the frail and delicate form that trembled in her grasp. 
That thought itself appeared to strike her, for she suspended 
the blow, changed her purpose, and dragging Nydia to the wall, 
seized from a hook a rope, often, alas! applied to a similar 
purpose, and the next moment the shrill, the agonized shrieks 
of the blind girl rang piercingly through the house. 


CHAPTER III. 


GLAUCUS MAKES A PURCHASE THAT AFTERWARDS COSTS HIM 
DEAR. 


“Hotta, my brave fellows!” said Lepidus, stooping his 
head, as he entered the low doorway of the house of Burbo. 
“We have come to see which of you most honors your lanista.” 
The gladiators rose from the table in respect to three gallants 
known to be among the gayest and richest youths of Pompei, 
and whose voices were therefore the dispensers of amphi- 
theatrical reputation. | 

“What fine animals!” said Clodius to Glaucus: “worthy to 
be gladiators.” 

“Tt is a pity they are not warriors,” returned Glaucus. 

A singular thing it was to see the dainty and fastidious 
Lepidus, whom in a banquet a ray of daylight seemed to blind, 
whom in the bath a breeze of air seemed to blast, in whom 
Nature seemed twisted and perverted from every natural im- 
pulse, and curdled into one dubious thing of effeminacy and 
art, —a singular thing was it to see this Lepidus, now all eager- 
ness, and energy, and life, patting the vast shoulders of the 
gladiators with a blanched and girlish hand, feeling with a 
mincing gripe their great brawn and iron muscles, all lost in 


104 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


calculating admiration at that manhood which he had spent his 
life in carefully banishing from himself. 

So have we seen at this day the beardless flutterers of the 
saloons of London thronging round the heroes of the Fives- 
court; so have we seen them admire, and gaze, and calculate a 
bet; so have we seen them meet together, in ludicrous yet in 
melancholy assemblage, — the two extremes of civilized society, 
the patrons of pleasure and its slaves; vilest of all slaves, at 
once ferocious and mercenary; male prostitutes, who sell their 
strength as women their beauty; beasts in act, but baser than 
beasts in motive: for the last, at least, do not mangle themselves 
for money. 

“Ha, Niger, how will you fight?” said Lepidus; “and with 
whom ?” 

““Sporus challenges me,” said the grim giant; “we shall 
fight to the death, I hope.” 

“Ah, to be sure!” grunted Sporus, with a twinkle of his 
small eye. 

“He takes the sword, I the net and the trident: it will be 
rare sport. J hope the survivor will have enough to keep up 
the dignity of the crown.” 

“Never fear, we’ll fill the purse, my Hector,” said Clodius : 
“let me see, you fight against Niger? Glaucus, a bet; I 
back Niger.” 

“T told you so,” cried Niger, exultingly. “The noble 
Clodius knows me; count yourself dead already, my Sporus.” 

Clodius took out his tablet. “A bet, —ten sestertia.! What 
Say you?” 

“So be it,” said Glaucus. “But whom have we here? I 
never saw this hero before; ” and he glanced at Lydon, whose 
limbs were slighter than those of his companions, and who 
had something of grace, and something even of nobleness, in 
his face, which his profession had not yet wholly destroyed. 

“Tt is Lydon, a youngster practised only with the wooden 
sword as yet,” answered Niger, condescendingly. “But he 
has the true blood in him, and has challenged Tetraides.” 

“ He challenged me,” said Lydon: “I accept the offer.” 

1 A little more than £80. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 105 


¢ And how do you fight?” asked Lepidus. “Chut, my boy, 
wait a while before you contend with Tetraides.” Lydon 
smiled disdainfully. 

“Ts he a citizen or a slave?” said Clodius. 

“ A citizen; we are all citizens here,” quoth Niger. 

“Stretch out your arm, my Lydon,” said Lepidus, with the 
air of a connoisseur. 

The gladiator, with a significant glance at his companions, 
extended an arm which, if not so huge in its girth as those of 
his comrades, was so firm in its muscles, so beautifully sym- 
metrical in its proportions, that the three visitors uttered 
simultaneously an admiring exclamation. 

“ Well, man, what is your weapon?” said Clodius, tablet 
in hand. 

“We are to fight first with the cestus; afterwards, if both 
survive, with swords,” returned Tetraides, sharply, and with 
an envious scowl. 

“With the cestus!” cried Glaucus; “there you are wrong, 
Lydon; the cestus is the Greek fashion: I know it well. 
You should have encouraged flesh for that contest; you are 
far too thin for it: avoid the cestus.” 

“T cannot,” said Lydon. 

¢ And why ?” 

“‘T have said: because he has challenged me.” 

“But he will not hold you to the precise weapon.” 

“ My honor holds me!” returned Lydon, proudly. 

“T bet on Tetraides, two to one, at the cestus,” said Clo- 
dius; “shall it be, Lepidus, — even betting, with swords ? ” 

“Tf you give me three to one, I will not take the odds,” 
said Lepidus: “Lydon will never come to the swords. You 
are mighty courteous.” 

“What say you, Glaucus ?” said Clodius. 

“TJ will take the odds three to one.” 

“Ten sestertia to thirty.” 

Eves. 

1 The reader will not confound the sestertii with the sestertia. A sester- 


tium, which was a sum, not a coin, was a thousand times the value of a sestertius ; 
the first was equivalent to £8 1s. 54d., the last to ld 32 farthings of our money. 


106 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Clodius wrote the bet in his book. 

‘Pardon me, noble sponsor mine,” said Lydon, in a low voice 
to Glaucus: “but how much think you the victor will gain ?” 

“How much? Why, perhaps seven sestertia.” 

“You are sure it will be as much ?” 

“ At least. But out on you! A Greek would have thought 
of the honor, and not the money. O Italians! everywhere ye 
are Italians !”° 

A blush mantled over the bronzed cheek of the gladiator. 

“Do not wrong me, noble Glaucus; I think of both, but I 
should never have been a gladiator but for the money.” 

‘‘Base! mayest thou fall! A miser never was a hero.” 

“JT am not a miser,” said Lydon, haughtily; and he with- 
drew to the other end of the room. 

‘But I don’t see Burbo; where is Burbo? I must talk 
with Burbo,” cried Clodius. 

“He is within,” said Niger, pointing to the door at the 
extremity of the room. 

“ And Stratonice, the brave old lass, where is she ?” quoth 
Lepidus. 

“Why she was here just before you entered; but she heard 
something that displeased her yonder, and vanished. Pollux! 
old Burbo had perhaps caught hold of some girl in the back 
room. I heard a female’s voice crying out; the old dame is 
as jealous as Juno.” 

“Ho! excellent!” cried Lepidus, laughing. “Come, Clo- 
dius, let us go shares with Jupiter; perhaps he has caught a 
Leda.” 

At this moment aloud cry of pain and terror startled the 
group. 

“Oh, spare me! spare me! Iam but achild; I am blind; 
is not that punishment enough ?” 

“© Pallas! I know that voice, itis my poor flower-girl!” 
exclaimed Glaucus; and he darted at once into the quarter 
whence the cry arose. 

He burst the door: he beheld Nydia writhing in the grasp 
of the infuriate hag; the cord, already dabbled with blood, 
was raised in the air: it was suddenly arrested. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, 107 


“Fury!” said Glaucus, and with his left hand he caught 
Nydia from her grasp; “ how dare you use thus a girl, — one 
of your own sex, achild! My Nydia, my poor infant!” 

“Oh, is that you, —4is that Glaucus ?” exclaimed the 
flower-girl, in a tone almost of transport; the tears stood 
arrested on her cheek; she smiled, she clung to his breast, 
she kissed his robe as she clung. 

“¢ And how dare you, pert stranger! interfere between a free 
woman and her slave? By the gods! despite your fine tunic 
and your filthy perfumes, I doubt whether you are even a 
Roman citizen, my manikin.” 

“Fair words, mistress, fair words!” said Clodius, now 
entering with Lepidus. “This is my friend and sworn 
brother: he must be put under shelter of your tongue, sweet 
one; it rains stones!” 

“Give me my slave!” shrieked the virago, placing her 
mighty grasp on the breast of the Greek. 

“ Not if all your sister Furies could help you,” answered 
Glaucus. “Fear not, sweet Nydia; an Athenian never for- 
sook distress ! ” 

“Holla!” said Burbo, rising reluctantly, “what turmoil is 
allthis about a slave? Let go the young gentleman, wife, — 
let him go: for his sake the pert thing shall be spared this 
once.” So saying he drew, or rather dragged off his ferocious 
helpmate. 

‘“Methought when we entered,” said Clodius, “there was 
another man present ?” 

“He is gone.” 

For the priest of Isis had indeed thought it high time to 
vanish. | 

“Oh, a friend of mine, a brother cupman, a quiet dog, who 
does not love these snarlings,” said Burbo, carelessly. But 
go, child; you will tear the gentleman’s tunic if you cling to 
him so tight: go, you are pardoned.” 

“Oh, do not, —do not forsake me!” cried Nydia, clinging 
yet closer to the Athenian. 

Moved by her forlorn situation, her appeal to him, her own 
innumerable and touching graces, the Greek seated himself on 


108 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


one of the rude chairs. He held her on his knees, he wiped 
the blood from her shoulders with his long hair, he kissed the 
tears from her cheeks, he whispered to her a thousand of 
those soothing words with which we calm the grief of a child; 
and so beautiful did he seem in his gentle and consoling task, 
that even the fierce heart of Stratonice was touched. His 
presence seemed to shed light over that base and obscene 
haunt; young, beautiful, glorious, he was the emblem of all 
that earth made most happy, comforting one that the earth 
had abandoned! 

“Well, who could have thought our blind Nydia had been 
so honored!” said the virago, wiping her heated brow. 

Glaucus looked up at Burbo. 

“My good man,” said he, “this is your slave; she sings 
well, she is accustomed to the care of flowers; I wish to make 
a present of such a slave to a lady. Will you sell her to 
me?” As he spoke he felt the whole frame of the poor girl 
tremble with delight; she started up, she put her dishevelled 
hair from her eyes, she looked around, as if, alas! she had the 
power to see. 

“Sell our Nydia! No indeed,” said Stratonice, grufily. 

Nydia sank back with a long sigh, and again clasped the 
robe of her protector. 

“‘ Nonsense!” said Clodius, imperiously; “you must oblige 
me. What, man! what, old dame! offend me, and your trade 
is ruined. Is not Burbo my kinsman Pansa’s client? Am I 
not the oracle of the amphitheatre and its heroes? IfI say 
the word, Break up your wine-jars, you sell no more. Glaucus, 
the slave is yours.” 

Burbo scratched his huge head, in evident embarrassment. 

“The girl is worth her weight in gold to me.” 

“ Name your price; I am rich,” said Glaucus. 

The ancient Italians were like the modern, —there was 
nothing they would not sell, much less a poor blind girl. 

“T paid six sestertia for her ; she is worth twelve now,” mut- 
tered Stratonice. 

“You shall have twenty; come to the magistrates at once, 
and then to my house for your money.” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 109 


“YT would not have sold the dear girl for a hundred but to 
oblige noble Clodius,” said Burbo, whiningly. “And you will 
speak to Pansa about the place of designator at the amphi- 
theatre, noble Clodius ? It would just suit me.” 

“Thou shalt have it,” said Clodius; adding in a whisper to 
Burbo, “Yon Greek can make your fortune; money runs 
through him lke a sieve: mark to-day with white chalk, my 
Priam.” 

“ An dabis?” said Glaucus, in the formal question of sale 
and barter. 

“ Dabitur,” answered Burbo. 

“Then, then I am to go with you — with you? Oh, happi. 
ness!” murmured Nydia. 

“ Pretty one, yes; and thy hardest task henceforth shall be 
to sing thy Grecian hymns to the loveliest lady in Pompeii.” 

The girl sprang from his clasp; a change came over her 
whole face, so bright the instant before; she sighed heavily, 
and then once more taking his hand, she said, — 

‘‘T thought I was to go to your house ? ” 

“¢ And so thou shalt for the present ; come, we lose time.” 


CHAPTER IY. 
THE RIVAL OF GLAUCUS PRESSES ONWARD IN THE RACE. 


Tone was one of those brilliant characters which but once or 
twice flash across our career. She united in the highest per- 
fection the rarest of earthly gifts, —Genius and Beauty. No 
one ever possessed superior intellectual qualities without 
knowing them. The alliteration of modesty and merit is 
pretty enough, but where merit is great, the veil of that mod- 
esty you admire never disguises its extent from its possessor. 
It is the proud consciousness of certain qualities that it cannot 
reveal to the every-day world, that gives to genius that shy 
and reserved and troubled air which puzzles and flatters you 
when you encounter it. 


110 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL. 


Tone, then, knew her genius; but with that charming versa- 
tility that belongs of right to women, she had the faculty so 
few of a kindred genius in the less malleable sex can claim, — 
the faculty to bend and model her graceful intellect to all 
whom it encountered. The sparkling fountain threw its 
waters alike upon the strand, the cavern, and the flowers; it 
refreshed, it smiled, it dazzled everywhere. That pride which 
is the necessary result of superiority she wore easily ; in her 
breast it concentrated itself in independence. She pursued 
thus her own bright and solitary path. She asked no aged 
matron to direct and guide her; she walked alone by the torch 
of her own unflickering purity. She obeyed no tyrannical and 
~ absolute custom: she moulded custom to her own will; but 
this so delicately and with so feminine a grace, so perfect an 
exemption from error, that you could not say she outraged 
custom but commanded it. The wealth of her graces was in- 
exhaustible: she beautified the commonest action; a word, a 
look from her, seemed magic. Love her, and you entered into 
a new world; you passed from this trite and commonplace 
earth ; you were in a land in which your eyes saw everything 
through an enchanted medium. In her presence you felt as if 
listening to exquisite music; you were steeped in that senti- 
ment which has so httle of earth in it, and which music so 
well inspires, — that intoxication which refines and exalts, 
which seizes, it is true, the senses, but gives them the character 
of the soul. 

She was peculiarly formed, then, to command and fascinate 
the less ordinary and the bolder natures of men; to love her 
was to unite two passions, — that of love and of ambition: you 
aspired when you adored her. It was no wonder that she had 
completely chained and subdued the mysterious but burning 
soul of the Egyptian, a man in whom dwelt the fiercest pas- 
sions. Her beauty and her soul alike enthralled him. 

Set apart himself from the common world, he loved that 
daringness of character which also made itself, among common 
things, aloof and alone. He did not, or he would not, see that 
that very isolation put her yet more from him than from the 
vulgar. Far as the poles, far as the night from day, his soli- 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL pie cs 


tude was divided from hers. He was solitary from his dark 
and solemn vices: she from her beautiful fancies and her purity 
of virtue. 

If it was not strange that Ione thus enthralled the Egyp- 
tian, far less strange was it that she had captured, as suddenly 
as irrevocably, the bright and sunny heart of the Athenian. 
The gladness of a temperament which seemed woven from the 
beams of light had led Glaucus into pleasure. He obeyed no 
_ more vicious dictates when he wandered into the dissipations 
of his time than the exhilarating voices of youth and health. 
He threw the brightness of his nature over every abyss and 
cavern through which he strayed. His imagination dazzled 
him, but his heart never was corrupted. Of far more penetra- 
tion than his companions deemed, he saw that they sought to 
prey upon his riches and his youth; but he despised wealth 
save as the means of enjoyment, and youth was the great 
sympathy that united him to them. He felt, it is true, the 
impulse of nobler thoughts and higher aims than in pleasure 
could be indulged: but the world was one vast prison, to 
which the Sovereign of Rome was the Imperial jailer; and 
the very virtues, which in the free days of Athens would have 
made him ambitious, in the slavery of earth made him inactive 
and supine. Yor in that unnatural and bloated civilization all 
that was noble in emulation was forbidden. Ambition in the 
regions of a despotic and luxurious court was but the contest 
of flattery and craft. Avarice had become the sole ambition ; 
men desired pretorships and provinces only as the license to 
pillage, and government was but the excuse of rapine. It is 
in small States that glory is most active and pure: the more 
confined the limits of the circle, the more ardent the patriot- 
ism. In small States opinion is concentrated and strong: 
every eye reads your actions; your public motives are blended 
with your private ties; every spot in your narrow sphere is 
crowded with forms familiar since your childhood; the ap- 
plause of your citizens is lke the caresses of your friends. 
But in large States the city is but the court; the provinces — 
unknown to you, unfamiliar in customs, perhaps in language 
—have no claim on your patriotism; the ancestry of their 


112 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


inhabitants is not yours. In the court you desire favor instead 
of glory; at a distance from the court public opinion has van- 
ished from you, and self-interest has no counterpoise. 

Italy, Italy, while I write, your skies are over me, your seas 
flow beneath my feet. Listen not to the blind policy which 
would unite all your crested cities, mourning for their repub- 
lics, into one empire ; false, pernicious delusion! your only hope 
of regeneration isin division. Florence, Milan, Venice, Genoa, 
may be free once more, if each is free. But dream not of free- 
dom for the whole while you enslave the parts; the heart must 
be the centre of the system, the blood must circulate freely 
everywhere; and in vast communities you behold but a bloated 
and feeble giant, whose brain is imbecile, whose limbs are dead, 
and who pays in disease and weakness the penalty of tran- 
scending the natural proportions of health and vigor. 

Thus thrown back upon themselves, the more ardent quali- 
ties of Glaucus found no vent, save in that overflowing im- 
agination which gave grace to pleasure, and poetry to thought. 
Ease was less despicable than contention with parasites and 
slaves and luxury could yet be refined; though ambition could 
not be ennobled. But all that was best and brightest in his 
soul woke at once when he knew Jone. Here was an empire 
worthy of demigods to attain; here was a glory which the 
reeking smoke of a foul society could not soil or dim. Love, 
in every time, in every State, can thus find space for its golden 
altars. And tell me if there ever, even in the ages most fav- 
orable to glory, could be a triumph more exalted and elating 
than the conquest of one noble heart ? 

And whether it was that this sentiment inspired him, his 
ideas glowed more brightly, his soul seemed more awake and 
more visible, in Ione’s presence. If natural to love her, it was 
natural that she should return the passion. Young, brilliant, 
eloquent, enamoured, and Athenian, he was to her as the in- 
carnation of the poetry of her father’s land. They were not 
like creatures of a world in which strife and sorrow are the 
elements; they were like things to be seen only in the holli- 
day of nature, so glorious and so fresh were their youth, their 
beauty, and their love. They seemed out of place in the: 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 113 


harsh and every-day earth; they belonged of right to the 
Saturnian age, and the dreams of demigod and nymph. It 
was as if the poetry of life gathered and fed itself in them, 
and in their hearts were concentrated the last rays of the sun 
of Delos and of Greece. 

But if Ione was independent in her choice of life, so was 
her modest pride proportionably vigilant and easily alarmed. 
The falsehood of the Egyptian was invented by a deep know]l- 
edge of her nature. The story of coarseness, of indelicacy, 
in Glaucus, stung her to the quick. She felt it a reproach 
upon her character and her career, a punishment above all to 
her love; she felt, for the first time, how suddenly she had 
yielded to that love; she blushed with shame at a weakness, 
the extent of which she was startled to perceive: she im- 
agined it was that weakness which had incurred the contempt 
of Glaucus; she endured the bitterest curse of noble natures, 
— humiliation! Yet her love, perhaps, was no less alarmed 
than her pride. If one moment she murmured reproaches 
upon Glaucus,—if one moment she renounced, she almost 
hated him, —at the next she burst into passionate tears, her 
heart yielded to its softness, and she said in the bitterness of 
anguish, ‘“ He despises me; he does not love me.” 

From the hour the Egyptian had left her she had retired to 
her most secluded chamber, she had shut out her handmaids, 
she had denied herself to the crowds that besieged her door. 
Glaucus was excluded with the rest; he wondered, but he 
guessed not why. He never attributed to his Ione, his queen, 
his goddess, that woman-like caprice of which the love-poets 
of Italy so unceasingly complain. He imagined her, in the 
majesty of her candor, above all the arts that, torture. He 
was troubled, but his hopes were not dimmed, for he knew 
already that he loved and was beloved; what more could he 
desire as an amulet against fear ? Yi 

At deepest night, then, when the streets were hushed, and 
the high moon only beheld his devotions, he stole to that tem- 
ple of his heart, — her home,!— and wooed her after the beau- 
tiful fashion of his country. He covered her threshold with 


1 Athensxus: “The true temple of Cupid is the house of the beloved one.” 
VOL. I. — 8 


114 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


the richest garlands, in which every flower was a volume of 
sweet passion; and he charmed the long summer night with 
the sound of the Lycian lute, and verses which the inspira- 
tion of the moment sufficed to weave. 

But the window above opened not; no smile made yet more 
holy the shining air of night. All was still and dark. He 
knew not if his verse was welcome and his suit was heard. 

Yet Ione slept not, nor disdained to hear. Those soft 
strains ascended to her chamber; they soothed, they subdued 
her. While she listened, she believed nothing against her 
lover; but when they were stilled at last, and his step de- 
parted, the spell ceased, and in the bitterness of her soul she 
almost conceived in that delicate flattery a new affront. 

I said she was denied to all; but there was one exception ; 
‘there was one person who would not be denied, assuming over 
her actions and her house something like the authority of a 
parent: Arbaces, for himself, claimed an exemption from all 
the ceremonies observed by others. He entered the threshold 
with the license of one who feels that he is privileged and at 
home. He made his way to her solitude, and with that sort 
of quiet and unapologetic air which seemed to consider the 
right as a thing of course. With all the independence of 
Tone’s character, his heart had enabled him to obtain a secret 
and powerful control over her mind. She could not shake it 
off; sometimes she desired to do so, but she never actively 
struggled against it. She was fascinated by his serpent eye. 
He arrested, he commanded her by the magic of a mind long 
accustomed to awe and to subdue. Utterly unaware of his 
real character or his hidden love, she felt for him the rever- 
ence which genius feels for wisdom, and virtue for sanctity. 
She regarded him as one of those mighty sages of old who 
attained to the mysteries of knowledge by an exemption from 
the passions of their kind. She scarcely considered him as a 
being, like herself, of the earth, but as an oracle at once dark 
and sacred. She did not love him, but she feared. His pres- 
ence was unwelcome to her; it dimmed her spirit even in its 
brightest mood ; he seemed, with his chilling and lofty aspect, 
like some eminence which casts a shadow over the sun. But 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 115 


she never thought of forbidding his visits. She was passive 
under the influence which created in her breast, not the repug- 
nance, but something of the stillness of terror. 

Arbaces himself now resolved to exert all his arts to pos- 
sess himself of that treasure he so burningly coveted. He 
was cheered and elated by his conquests over her brother. 
From the hour in which Apecides fell beneath the volup- 
tuous sorcery of that féte which we have described, he felt his 
empire over the young priest triumphant and insured. He 
knew that there is no victim so thoroughly subdued as a 
young and fervent man for the first time delivered to the thral- 
dom of the senses. 

When Apezecides recovered, with the morning light, from 
the profound sleep which succeeded to the delirium of wonder 
and of pleasure, he was, it is true, ashamed, terrified, ap- 
palled. His vows of austerity and celibacy echoed in his ear; 
his thirst after holiness, — had it been quenched at so unhal- 
lowed a stream? But Arbaces knew well the means by which 
to confirm his conquest. From the arts of pleasure he led 
the young priest at once to those of his mysterious wisdom. 
He bared to his amazed eyes the initiatory secrets of the 
sombre philosophy of the Nile, — those secrets plucked from 
the stars, and the wild chemistry, which, in those days, when 
Reason herself was but the creature of Imagination, might 
well pass for the lore of a diviner magic. He seemed to the 
young eyes of the priest as a being above mortality, and 
endowed with supernatural gifts. That yearning and intense 
desire for the knowledge which is not of earth, which had 
burned from his boyhood in the heart of the priest, was daz- 
zled until it confused and mastered his clearer sense. He 
gave himself to the art which thus addressed at once the two 
strongest of human passions, — that of pleasure and that of 
knowledge. He was loth to believe that one so wise could 
err, that one so lofty could stoop to deceive. Entangled in 
the dark web of metaphysical moralities, he caught at the 
excuse by which the Egyptian converted vice into a virtue. 
His pride was insensibly flattered that Arbaces had deigned 
to rank him with himself, to set him apart from the laws 


116 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


which bound the vulgar, to make him an august participator, 
both in the mystic studies and the magic fascinations of the 
Egyptian’s solitude. The pure and stern lessons of that 
ereed to which Olinthus had sought to make him convert 
were swept away from his memory by the deluge of new 
passions; and the Egyptian, who was versed in the articles 
of that true faith, and who soon learned from his pupil the 
effect which had been produced upon him by his believers, 
sought, not unskilfully, to undo that effect by a tone of 
reasoning half sarcastic and half earnest. 

“This faith,” said he, “is but a borrowed plagiarism from 
one of the many allegories invented by our priests of old. 
Observe,” he added, pointing to a hieroglyphical scroll, — “ ob. 
serve in these ancient figures the origin of the Christian’s 
Trinity. Here are also three gods,—the Deity, the Spirit, 
and the Son. Observe, that the epithet of the Son is ‘Say- 
iour ;’ observe that the sign by which his human qualities are 
denoted is the cross.1 Note here, too, the mystic history of 
Osiris: how he put on death; how he lay in the grave; and 
how, thus fulfilling a solemn atonement, he rose again from 
the dead! In these stories we but design to paint an allegory 
from the operations of nature and the evolutions of the eter- 
nal heavens. But the allegory unknown, the types them- 
selves have furnished to credulous nations the materials of 
many creeds. They have travelled to the vast plains of India; 
they have mixed themselves up in the visionary speculations 
of the Greek: becoming more and more gross and embodied, 
as they emerge farther from the shadows of their antique 
origin, they have assumed a human and palpable form in 
this novel faith; and the believers of Galilee are but the un- 
conscious repeaters of one of the superstitions of the Nile.” 

This was the last argument, which completely subdued the 
priest. It was necessary to him, as to all, to believe in some- 
thing; and undivided, and at last unreluctant, he surrendered 
himself to that belief which Arbaces inculcated, and which all 
that was human in passion, all that was flattering in vanity, 


1 The believer will draw from this vague coincidence a very different 
corollary from that of the Egyptian. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. Lia by 


all that was alluring in pleasure, served to invite to, and con- 
tributed to confirm. 

This conquest thus easily made, the Egyptian could now 
give himself wholly up to the pursuit of a far dearer and 
mightier object; and he hailed, in his success with the brother, 
an omen of his triumph over the sister. 

He had seen Ione on the day following the revel we have 
witnessed, and which was also the day after he had poisoned 
her mind against his rival. The next day, and the next, he 
saw her also; and each time he laid himself out with consum. 
mate art, partly to confirm her impression against Glaucus, 
and principally to prepare her for the impressions he desired 
her to receive. The proud Ione took care to conceal the an- 
cuish she endured, and the pride of woman has an hypocrisy 
which can deceive the most penetrating and shame the most 
astute; but Arbaces was no less cautious not to recur to a 
subject which he felt it was most politic to treat as of the 
lightest importance. He knew that by dwelling much upon 
the fault of a rival, you only give him dignity in the eyes of 
your mistress; the wisest plan is, neither loudly to hate, nor 
bitterly to contemn; the wisest plan is to lower him by an 
indifference of tone, as 1f you could not dream that he could 
be loved. Your safety is in concealing the wound to your 
own pride, and imperceptibly alarming that of the umpire, 
whose voice is fate! Such, in all times, will be the policy 
of one who knows the science of the sex: it was now the 
Egyptian’s. 

He recurred no more, then, to the presumption of Glaucus; 
he mentioned his name, but not more often than that of Clo- 
dius or of Lepidus. He affected to class them. together as 
things of a low and ephemeral species; as things wanting noth- 
ing of the butterfly save its innocence and its grace. Some- 
times he slightly alluded to some invented debauch, in which 
he declared them companions; sometimes he adverted to 
them as the antipodes of those lofty and spiritual natures to 
whose order that of Ione belonged. Blinded alike by the 
pride of Ione, and, perhaps, by his own, he dreamed not that 
she already loved; but he dreaded lest she might have formed 


118 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


for Glaucus the first fluttering prepossessions that Zead to love. 
And secretly he ground his teeth in rage and jealousy when 
he reflected on the youth, the fascinations, and the brilliancy 
of that formidable rival whom he pretended to undervalue. 

It was on the fourth day from the date of the close of the 
previous book that Arbaces and Ione sat together. 

‘You wear your veil at home,” said the Egyptian; “that is 
not fair to those whom you honor with your friendship.” 

“But to Arbaces,” answered Ione, who, indeed, had cast the 
veil over her features to conceal eyes red with weeping, — “to 
Arbaces, who looks only to the mind, what matters it that the 
face is concealed ? ” 

“T do look only to the mind,” replied the Egyptian: “show 
me then your face, for there I shall see it!” 

“You grow gallant in the air of Pompeii,” said Ione, with 
a forced tone of gayety. 

“Do you think, fair Ione, that it is only at Pompeii that I 
have learned to value you?” The Egyptian’s voice trembled ; 
he paused for a moment, and then resumed. 

“There is a love, beautiful Greek, which is not the love 
only of the thoughtless and the young, —there is a love which 
sees not with the eyes, which hears not with the ears, but in 
which soul is enamoured of soul. The countryman of thy 
ancestors, the cave-nursed Plato, dreamed of such a love: his 
followers have sought to imitate it; but it 1s a love that is not 
for the herd to echo; it is a love that only high and noble 
natures can conceive; it hath nothing in common with the 
sympathies and ties of coarse affection; wrinkles do not revolt 
it, homeliness of feature does not deter; it asks youth, it is 
true, but it asks it only in the freshness of the emotions; it 
asks beauty, it is true, but it is the beauty of the thought and 
of the spirit. Such is the love, O Ione, which is a worthy 
offering to thee from the cold and the austere. Austere and 
cold thou deemest me: such is the love that I venture to lay 
upon thy shrine; thou canst receive it without a blush.” 

“ And its name is Friendship,” replied Ione. Her answer 
was innocent, yet it sounded like the reproof of one conscious 
of the design of the speaker. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 119 


“Friendship!” said Arbaces, vehemently. “No; that isa 
word too often profaned to apply to a sentiment so sacred. 
Friendship! it is a tie that binds fools and profligates! 
Friendship! it is the bond that unites the frivolous hearts of 
a Glaucus and a Clodius! Friendship! no, that is an affection 
of earth, of vulgar habits and sordid sympathies. The feeling 
of which I speak is borrowed from the stars ;1 it partakes of 
that mystic and ineffable yearning which we feel when we 
gaze on them; it burns, yet it purifies; it is the lamp of 
naphtha in the alabaster vase, glowing with fragrant odors, 
but shining only through the purest vessels. No; it is not 
love, and it is not friendship, that Arbaces feels for Ione. 
Give it no name,—earth has no name for it; it is not of 
earth: why debase it with earthly epithets and earthly asso- 
ciations ?” 

Never before had Arbaces ventured so far, yet he felt his 
ground step by step: he knew that he uttered a language 
which, if at this day of affected platonisms it would speak 
unequivocally to the ears of beauty, was at that time strange 
and unfamiliar, to which no precise idea could be attached, 
from which he could imperceptibly advance or recede, as occa- 
sion suited, as hope encouraged or fear deterred. Jone trem- 
bled, though she knew not why; her veil hid her features, and 
masked an expression, which, if seen by the Egyptian, would 
have at once damped and enraged him; in fact, he never was 
more displeasing to her: the harmonious modulation of the 
most suasive voice that ever disguised unhallowed thought 
fell discordantly on her ear. Her whole soul was still filled 
with the image of Glaucus, and the accent of tenderness from 
another only revolted and dismayed; yet she did not conceive 
that any passion more ardent than that platonism which Ar- 
baces expressed lurked beneath his words. She thought that 
he, in truth, spoke only of the affection and sympathy of the 
soul; but was it not precisely that affection and that sym- 
pathy which had made a part of those emotions she felt for 
Glaucus ; and could any other footstey than his approach the 
haunted adytum of her heart ? 


1 Plato. 


120 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


Anxious at once to change the conversation, she replied, 
therefore, with a cold and indifferent voice: “ Whomsoever 
Arbaces honors with the sentiment of esteem, it is natural 
that his elevated wisdom should color that sentiment with its 
own hues; it is natural that his friendship should be purer 
than that of others, whose pursuits and errors he does not 
deign to share. But tell me, Arbaces, hast thou seen my 
brother of late? He has not visited me for several days; 
and when I last saw him his manner disturbed and alarmed 
me much. I fear lest he was too precipitate in the severe 
choice that he has adopted, and that he repents an irrevocable 
step.” 

‘Be cheered, Ione,” replied the Egyptian. “It is true 
that some little time since he was troubled and sad of spirit; 
those doubts beset him which were likely to haunt one of that 
fervent temperament, which ever ebbs and flows, and vibrates 
between excitement and exhaustion. But he, Ione, he came to 
me in his anxieties and his distress; he sought one who pitied © 
and loved him. I have calmed his mind, I have removed his 
doubts, I have taken him from the threshold of Wisdom into 
its temple; and before the majesty of the goddess his soul 
is hushed and soothed. Fear not, he will repent no more; 
they who trust themselves to Arbaces never repent but for a 
moment.” 

“ You rejoice me,” answered Ione. “My dear brother! in 
his contentment I am happy.” 

The conversation then turned upon lighter subjects; the 
Egyptian exerted himself to please, he condescended even to 
entertain; the vast variety of his knowledge enabled him to 
adorn and light up every subject on which he touched; and 
Tone, forgetting the displeasing effect of his former words, was 
carried away, despite her sadness, by the magic of his intel- 
lect. Her manner became unrestrained and her language 
fluent; and Arbaces, who had waited his opportunity, now 
hastened to seize it. 

“You have never seen,” said he, “the interior of my home; 
it may amuse you to do so: it contains some rooms that may 
explain to you what you have often asked me to describe, — 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 121 


the fashion of an Egyptian house; not, indeed, that you will 
perceive in the poor and minute proportions of Roman archi. 
tecture the massive strength, the vast space, the gigantic 
magnificence, or even the domestic construction of the palaces 
of ‘Thebes and Memphis; but something there is, here and 
there, that may serve to express to you some notion of that 
antique civilization which has humanized the world. Devote, 
then, to the austere friend of your youth, one of these 
bright summer evenings, and let me boast that my gloomy 
mansion has been honored with the presence of the admired 
Tone.” 

Unconscious of the pollutions of the mansion, of the danger 
that awaited her, Ione readily assented to the proposal. ‘The 
next evening was fixed for the visit; and the Egyptian, with 
a serene countenance, and a heart beating with fierce and 
unholy joy, departed. Scarce had he gone, when another 
visitor claimed admission. — But now we return to Glaucus. 


CHAPTER V. 
THE POOR TORTOISE. NEW CHANGES FOR NYDIA. 


THE morning sun shone over the small and odorous garden 
enclosed within the peristyle of the house of the Athenian. 
He lay reclined, sad and listlessly, on the smooth grass which 
intersected the viridarium, and a slight canopy stretched 
above broke the fierce rays of the summer sun. 

When that fairy manison was first disinterred from the earth 
they found in the garden the shell of a tortoise that had been 
its inmate.t That animal, so strange a link in the creation, to 
which Nature seems to have denied all the pleasures of life, 
save life’s passive and dreamlike perception, had been the 
guest of the place for years before Glaucus purchased it, — for 
years, indeed, which went beyond the memory of man, and to 


1 I do not know whether it be still preserved (I hope so), but the shell of 
a tortoise was found in the house appropriated, in this work, to Glaucus. 


122 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


which tradition assigned an almost incredible date. ‘The house 
had been built and rebuilt, its possessors had changed and 
fluctuated, generations had flourished and decayed, and still 
the tortoise dragged on its slow and unsympathizing existence. 
In the earthquake, which sixteen years before had overthrown 
many of the public buildings of the city, and scared away the 
amazed inhabitants, the house now inhabited by Glaucus had 
been terribly shattered. The possessors deserted it for many 
days; on their return they cleared away the ruins which en- 
cumbered the viridarium, and found still the tortoise, un- 
harmed, and unconscious of the surrounding destruction. It 
seemed to bear a charmed life in its languid blood and imper- 
ceptible motions; yet was it not so inactive as it seemed: 
it held a regular and monotonous course; inch by inch it 
traversed the little orbit of its domain, taking months to ac- 
complish the whole gyration. It was a restless voyager, that 
tortoise! patiently, and with pain, did it perform its self- 
appointed journeys, evincing no interest in the things around 
it, — a philosopher concentred in itself. There was some- 
thing grand in its solitary selfishness: the sun in which it 
basked, the waters poured daily over it, the air, which it insen- 
sibly inhaled, were its sole and unfailing luxuries. The mild 
changes of the season in that lovely clime affected it not. It 
covered itself with its shell, as the saint in his piety, as the 
sage in his wisdom, as the lover in his hope. 

It was impervious to the shocks and mutations of time, it 
was anemblem of time itself, —slow, regular, perpetual, un- 
witting of the passions that fret themselves around, of the 
wear and tear of mortality. The poor tortoise! nothing less 
than the bursting of volcanoes, the convulsions of the riven 
world, could have quenched its sluggish spark! The inexo- 
rable Death, that spared not pomp or beauty, passed unheed- 
ingly by a thing to which death could bring so insignificant 
a change. 

For this animal the mercurial and vivid Greek felt all the 
wonder and affection of contrast. He could spend hours in 
surveying its creeping progress, in moralizing over its mechan- 
ism. He despised it in joy; he envied it in sorrow. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 123 


Regarding it now ashe lay along the sward, its dull mass 
moving while it seemed motionless, the Athenian murmured 
to himself : — 

“The eagle dropped a stone from his talons, thinking to 
break thy shell: the stone crushed the head of a poet. This 
is the allegory of Fate! Dull thing! thou hadst a father 
and a mother; perhaps, ages ago, thou thyself hadst a mate. 
Did thy parents love, or didst thou? Did thy slow blood cir- 
culate more gladly when thou didst creep to the side of thy 
wedded one? Wert thou capable of affection? Could it dis- 
tress thee if she were away from thy side? Couldst thou 
feel when she was present? What would I not give to know 
_ the history of thy mailed breast, to gaze upon the mechanism 
of thy faint desires, to mark what hairbreadth difference sepa- 
rates thy sorrow from thy joy! Yet, methinks, thou wouldst 
know if Ione were present! Thou wouldst feel her com- 
ing like a happier air, like a gladder sun. I envy thee 
now, for thou knowest not that she is absent; and I[— 
would I could be like thee between the intervals of seeing 
her! What doubt, what presentiment, haunts me! Why will 
she not admit me? Days have passed since I heard her 
voice. For the first time, life grows flat tome. I am as one 
who is left alone at a banquet, the hghts dead and the 
flowers faded. Ah, Ione, couldst thou dream how I adore 
thee!” 

From these enamoured reveries Glaucus was interrupted by 
the entrance of Nydia. She came with her light though cau- 
tious step along the marble tablinum. She passed the portico, 
and paused at the flowers which bordered the garden. She 
had her water-vase in her hand, and she sprinkled the thirsting 
plants, which seemed to brighten at her approach. She bent 
to inhale their odor; she touched them timidly and caress- 
ingly; she felt along their stems, if any withered leaf or 
creeping insect marred their beauty. And as she hovered 
from flower to flower, with her earnest and youthful counte- 
nance and graceful motions, you could not have imagined a 
fitter handmaid for the goddess of the garden. 

“ Nydia, my child!” said Glaucus. 


124 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


At the sound of his voice she paused at once, — listening, 
blushing, breathless ; with her lips parted, her face upturned 
to catch the direction of the sound, she laid down the vase, 
she hastened to him; and wonderful it was to see how un- 
erringly she threaded her dark way through the flowers, and 
came by the shortest path to the side of her new lord. 

“ Nydia,” said Glaucus, tenderly stroking back her long and 
beautiful hair, “it is now three days since thou hast been 
under the protection of my household gods. Have they smiled 
on thee? Art thou happy?” 

“ Ah, so happy!” sighed the slave. 

“ And now,” continued Glaucus, “that thou hast recovered 
somewhat from the hateful recollections of thy former state, 
and now that they have fitted thee [touching her broidered . 
tunic | with garments more meet for thy delicate shape, and 
now, sweet child, that thou hast accustomed thyself to a 
happiness which may the gods grant thee ever, I am about to 
pray at thy hands a boon.” 

“Oh, what can I do for thee?” said Nydia, clasping her 
hands. 

“ Listen,” said Glaucus, “and, young as thou art, thou shalt 
be my confidante. Hast thou ever heard the name of Ione?” 

The blind girl gasped for breath, and turning pale as one 
of the statues which shone upon them from the peristyle, she 
answered with an effort, and after a moment’s pause, — 

“Yes; I have heard that she is of Neapolis, and beautiful.” 

“Beautiful! Her beauty is a thing to dazzle the day! 
Neapolis! nay, she is Greek by origin; Greece only could 
furnish forth such shapes. Nydia, I love her!” 

“7 thought so,” replied Nydia, calmly. 

“T love, and thou shalt tell her so. I am about to send thee 
to her. Happy Nydia, thou wilt be in her chamber, thou 
wilt drink the music of her voice, thou wilt bask in the 
sunny air of her presence! ” 

“What! what! wilt thou send me from thee ?” 

“Thou wilt go to Ione,” answered Glaucus, in a tone that 
said, “ What more canst thou desire ? ” 

Nydia burst into tears. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 125 


Glaucus, raising himself, drew her towards him with the 
soothing caresses of a brother. 

“My child, my Nydia, thou weepest in ignorance of the 
happiness I bestow on thee. She is gentle and kind, and soft 
as the breeze of spring. She will be a sister to thy youth, she 
will appreciate thy winning talents, she will love thy simple 
graces aS none other could, for they are like her own. Weep- 
est thou still, fond fool? Iwill not force thee, sweet. Wilt 
thou not do for me this kindness ?” 

‘Well, if I can serve thee,command. See, I weep no longer; 
I am calm.” 

“That is my own Nydia,” continued Glaucus, kissing her 
hand. “Go, then, to her: if thou art disappointed in her 
kindness, — if I have deceived thee, — return when thou wilt. I 
do not give thee to another; I but lend. My home ever be thy 
refuge, sweet one. Ah, would it could shelter all the friend- 
less and distressed! But if my heart whispers truly, I shall 
claim thee again soon, my child. My home and Ione’s will 
become the same, and thou shalt dwell with both.” 

A shiver passed through the slight frame of the blind girl, 
but she wept no more; she was resigned. 

“Go, then, my Nydia, to Ione’s house; they shall show thee 
the way. ‘Take her the fairest flowers thou canst pluck; the 
vase which contains them I will give thee: thou must excuse 
its unworthiness. Thou shalt take, too, with thee the lute 
that I gave thee yesterday, and from which thou knowest so 
well to awaken the charming spirit. Thou shalt give her also 
this letter, in which, after a hundred efforts, I have embodied 
something of my thoughts. Let thy ear catch every accent, 
every modulation of her voice, and tell me, wnen we meet 
again, if its music should flatter me or discourage. It is now, 
Nydia, some days since I have been admitted to Ione; there is 
something mysterious in this exclusion. I am distracted with 
doubts and fears ; learn, —for thou art quick, and thy care for 
me will sharpen tenfold thy acuteness,—Jlearn the cause of 
this unkindness; speak of me as often as thou canst; let my 
name come ever to thy lips; insinwate how I love rather than 
proclaim it; watch if she sighs whilst thou speakest; if she 


126 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


answer thee; or, if she reproves, in what accents she reproves. 
Be my friend, plead for me; and ah, how vastly wilt thou over- 
pay the little I have done for thee! Thou comprehendest, 
Nydia; thou art yet a child,—have I said more than thou 
canst understand ?” 

Les Fi 

“ And thou wilt serve me?” 

‘YY es,” 

“Come to me when thou hast gathered the flowers, and I 
will give thee the vase I spake of; seek me in the chamber of 
Leda. Pretty one, thou dost not grieve now ?” 

“ Glaucus, I am a slave; what business have I with grief 
or joy ?” 

“‘Sayest thou so? No, Nydia, be free. I give thee freedom ; 
enjoy it as thou wilt, and pardon me that I reckoned on thy 
desire to serve me.” 

“You are offended. Oh, I would not, for that which no 
freedom can give, offend you, Glaucus! My guardian, my 
saviour, my protector, forgive the poor blind girl! She does 
not grieve, even in leaving thee, if she can contribute to thy 
happiness.” 

“May the gods bless this grateful heart!” said Glaucus, 
greatly moved; and, unconscious of the fires he excited, he 
repeatedly eee her forehead. 

“Thou forgivest me,” said she, “and thou wilt tallk no more 
of freedom; my happiness is to be thy slave: thou hast prom- 
ised thou male not give me to another.” 

“‘T have promised.” 

“ And now, then, I will gather the flowers.” 

Silently Nydia took from the hand of Glaucus the costly and 
jewelled vase, in which the flowers vied with each other in hue 
and fragrance; tearlessly she received his parting admonition. 
She paused for a moment when his voice ceased; she did not 
trust herself to reply; she sought his hand; she raised it to 
her lips, dropped her veil over her face, and passed at once from 
his presence. She paused again as she reached the threshold; 
she stretched her hands towards it, and murmured, — 

“Three happy days — days of unspeakable delight — have I 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 127 


known since I passed thee, blessed threshold! May peace 
dwell ever with thee when I am gone! And now, my heart 
tears itself from thee, and the only sound it utters bids me — 
die!” 


CHAPTER VI. 
THE HAPPY BEAUTY AND THE BLIND SLAVE. 


A sLAvs entered the chamber of Ione. A messenger from 
Glaucus desired to be admitted. 

Tone hesitated an instant. 

“She is blind, that messenger,” said the slave; “she will 
do her commission to none but thee.” 

Base is that heart which does not respect affliction! The 
moment she heard the messenger was blind, Ione felt the im- 
possibility of returning a chilling reply. Glaucus had chosen 
a herald that was indeed sacred, —a herald that could not be 
denied. | 

“ What can he want with me? what message can he send ?” 
and the heart of Ione beat quick. The curtain across the door 
was withdrawn; a soft and echoless step fell upon the marble ; 
and Nydia, led by one of the attendants, entered with her 
precious gift. 

She stood still a moment, as if hstening for some sound that 
might direct her. 

‘Will the noble Ione,” said she, in a soft and low voice, 
“deigon to speak, that I may know whither to steer these be- 
nighted steps, and that I may lay my offerings at her feet ?” 

“ Fair child,” said Ione, touched and soothingly, “ give not 
thyself the pain to cross these slippery floors; my attendant 
will bring to me what thou hast to present;” and she mo- 
tioned to the handmaid to take the vase. 

“T may give these flowers to none but thee,” answered 
Nydia; and, guided by her ear, she walked slowly to the place 
where Ione sat, and kneeling when she came before her, prof- 
fered the vase. 


128 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETD. 


Tone took it from her hand, and placed it on the table at 
her side. She then raised her gently, and would have seated 
her on the couch, but the girl modestly resisted. 

“T have not yet discharged my office,” said she; and she 
drew the letter of Glaucus from her vest. “This will, per- 
haps, explain why he who sent me chose so unworthy a mes- 
senger to Ione.” 

The Neapolitan took the letter with a hand, the trembling 
of which Nydia at once felt and sighed to feel. With folded 
arms and downcast looks, she stood before the proud and 
stately form of Ione; no less proud, perhaps, in her attitude 
of submission. Ione waved her hand, and the attendants 
withdrew; she gazed again upon the form of the young slave 
in surprise and beautiful compassion; then, retiring a little 
from her, she opened and read the following letter: — 


“Glaucus to Ione sends more than he dares to utter. Is Ione ill? 
Thy slaves tell me ‘ No,’ and that assurance comforts me. Has Glaucus 
offended Ione? Ah! that question I may not ask from them. For 
five days I have been banished from thy presence. Has the sun shone ? 
I know it not. Has the sky smiled? It has had no smile forme. My 
sun and my sky are Ione. Do I offend thee? AmTItoo bold? Did I 
say that on the tablet which my tongue has hesitated to breathe? 
Alas! it is in thine absence that I feel most the spells by which thou 
hast subdued me. And absence, that deprives me of joy, brings me 
courage. Thou wilt not see me; thou hast banished also the common 
flatterers that flock around thee. Canst thou confound me with them ? 
It is not possible! Thou knowest too well that I am not of them, — 
that their clay is not mine. For even were I of the humblest mould, 
the fragrance of the rose has penetrated me, and the spirit of thy nature 
hath passed within me, to embalm, to sanctify, to inspire. Have they 
slandered me to thee, Ione? Thou wilt not believe them. Did the 
Delphic oracle itself tell me thou wert unworthy, I would not believe it ; 
and am I less incredulous than thou? I think of the last time we met, 
of the song which I sang to thee, of the look that thou gavest me in 
return. Disguise it as thou wilt, Ione, there is something kindred be- 
tween us, and our eyes acknowledged it, though our lips were silent. 
Deign to see me, to listen to me, and after that exclude me if thou wilt. 
I meant not so soon to say I loved. But those words rush to my heart; 
they will have way. Accept, then, my homage and my vows. We 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 129 


met first at the shrine of Pallas; shall we not meet before a softer and 
a more ancient altar? 

‘¢ Beautiful, adored Ione! If my hot youth and my Athenian blood 
have misguided and allured me, they have but taught my wanderings 
to appreciate the rest, the haven they have attained. I hang up my 
dripping robes on the Sea-god’s shrine. I have escaped shipwreck. 
I have found THEE. Ione, deign to see me; thou art gentle to stran- 
. gers, wilt thou be less merciful to those of thine own land? I await thy 
reply. Accept the flowers which I send; their sweet breath has a lan- 
guage more eloquent than words. ‘They take from the sun the odors 
they return; they are the emblem of the love that receives and repays 
tenfold, —the emblem of the heart that drunk thy rays, and owes to thee 
the germ of the treasures that it proffers to thy smile. I send these by 
one whom thou wilt receive for her own sake, if not for mine. She, like 
us, is a stranger; her father’s ashes lie under brighter skies; but, less 
happy than we, she is blind and a slave. Poor Nydia! I seek as much 
as possible to repair to her the cruelties of Nature and of Fate, in ask- 
ing permission to place her with thee. She is gentle, quick, and docile. 
She is skilled in music and the song; and she is a very Chloris! to the 
flowers. She thinks, Ione, that thou wilt love her: if thou dost not, 
send her back to me. 

‘‘One word more: let me be bold, Ione. Why thinkest thou so 
highly of yon dark Egyptian? he hath not about him the air of honest 
men. We Greeks learn mankind from our cradle: we are not the less 
profound, in that we affect no sombre mien: our lips smile, but our 
eyes are grave, — they observe, they note, they study. Arbaces is not 
one to be credulously trusted: can it be that he hath wronged me tc 
thee? I think it, for I left him with thee; thou sawest how my pres- 
ence stung him; since then thou hast not admitted me. Believe nothing 
that he can say to my disfavor ; if thou dost, tell me so at once; for this 
Tone owes to Glaucus. Farewell! this letter touches thy hand; these 
characters meet thine eyes: shall they be more blessed than he who is 
their author? Once more farewell!” 


It seemed to Ione, as she read this letter, as if a mist had 
fallen from her eyes. What had been the supposed offence of 
Glaucus? That he had not really loved! And now, plainly, 
and in no dubious terms, he confessed that love. From that 
moment his power was fully restored. At every tender word 
in that letter, so full of romantic and trustful passion, her 


1 The Greek Flora. 
VOL. 1.—9 


130 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


heart smote her. And had she doubted his faith, and had she 
believed another; and had she not, at least, allowed to him 
the culprit’s right to know his crime, to plead in his defence ? 
The tears rolled down her cheeks, she kissed the letter, she 
placed it in her bosom; and turning to Nydia, who stood in 
the same place and in the same posture, — 

‘Wilt thou sit, my child,” said she, “while I write an an- 
swer to this letter?” ; 

“You will answer it, then!” said Nydia, coldly. “ Well, 
the slave that accompanied me will take back your answer.” 

“For you,” said Ione, “stay with me; trust me, your service 
shall be hight.” 

Nydia bowed her head. 

“What is your name, fair girl?” 

“They call me Nydia.” 

“Your country ?” 

“The land of Olympus, — Thessaly.” 

‘Thou shalt be to me a friend,” said Ione, caressingly, “as 
thou art already half a countrywoman. Meanwhile, I beseech 
thee, stand not on these cold and glassy marbles. There! now 
that thou art seated, I can leave thee for an instant.” 


‘Tone to Glaucus greeting: Come to me, Glaucus [wrote Ione], — 
come to me to-morrow. I may have been unjust to thee, but I will tell 
thee, at least, the fault that has been imputed to thy charge. Fear not 
henceforth the Egyptian ; fear none. Thou sayest thou hast expressed 
too much: alas! in these hasty words I have already done so. Fare- 
well!” 


As Jone reappeared with the letter, which she did not dare 
to read after she had written (ah, common rashness, common 
timidity of love!), Nydia started from her seat. 

“You have written to Glaucus ?”’ 

“ T have.” 

“And will he thank the messenger who gives to him thy 
letter ?” 

Tone forgot her companion was blind; she blushed from the 
brow to the neck, and remained silent. 

“T mean this,” added Nydia in a calmer tone; “the lightest 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 131 


word of coldness from thee will sadden him, the lightest kind- 
ness will rejoice. If it be the first, let the slave take back 
thine answer; if it be the last, let me. I will return this 
evening.” 

“¢ And why, Nydia,” asked Ione, evasively, “‘ wouldst thou be 
the bearer of my letter ?” 

‘Tt is so, then!” said Nydia. “Ah! how could it be other- 
- wise; who could be unkind to Glaucus ? ” 

“My child,” said Ione, a little more reservedly than before, 
“thou speakest warmly. Glaucus, then, is amiable in thine 
eyes.” 

“Noble Ione, Glaucus has been that to me which neither 
fortune nor the gods have been, — a friend /” 

The sadness, mingled with dignity, with which Nydia uttered 
these simple words affected the beautiful Ione; she bent down 
and kissed her. “Thou art grateful, and deservedly so; why 
should I blush to say that Glaucus is worthy of thy gratitude ? 
Go, my Nydia; take to him thyself this letter, but return 
again. If I am from home when thou returnest,—as this 
evening, perhaps, I shall be, — thy chamber shall be prepared 
next my own. Nydia, I have no sister: wilt thou be one to 
me ?” 

The Thessalian kissed the hand of Ione, and then said, with 
some embarrassment, — 

‘One favor, fair Ione; may I dare to ask it?” 

“Thou canst not ask what I will not grant,” replied the 
Neapolitan. 

“They tell me,” said Nydia, “that thou art beautiful beyond 
the loveliness of earth. Alas! I cannot see that which glad- 
dens the world. Wiult thou suffer me, then, to pass my hand 
over thy face? That is my sole criterion of beauty, and I 
usually guess aright.” 

She did not wait for the answer of Tone, but, as she spoke, 
gently and slowly passed her hand over the bending and half- 
averted features of the Greek, — features which but one image 
in the world can yet depicture and recall: that image is the 
mutilated but all-wondrous statue in her native city, her own 
Neapolis; that Parian face, before which all the beauty of the 


132 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Florentine Venus is poor and earthly; that aspect so full of 
harmony, of youth, of genius, of the soul, which modern critics 
have supposed the representation of Psyche.? 

Her touch lingered over the braided hair and polished brow, 
over the downy and damask cheek, over the dimpled lip, the 
swan-like and whitish neck. “I know now that thou art 
beautiful,” she said, “and I can picture thee to my darkness 
henceforth and forever.” 

When Nydia left her, Ione sank into a deep but delicious 
reverie. Glaucus, then, loved her; he owned it,— yes, he 
loved her. She drew forth again that dear confession; she 
paused over every word, she kissed every line; she did not 
ask why he had been maligned, she only felt assured that he 
had been so. She wondered how she had ever believed a 
syllable against him; she wondered how the Egyptian had 
been enabled to exercise a power against Glaucus; she felt a 
chill creep over her as she again turned to his warning against 
Arbaces, and her secret fear of that gloomy being darkened 
into awe. She was awakened from these thoughts by her 
maidens, who came to announce to her that the hour appointed 
to visit Arbaces was arrived; she started: she had forgotten 
the promise. Her first impression was to renounce it; her 
second was to laugh at her own fears of her eldest surviving 
friend. She hastened to add the usual ornaments to her dress, 
and, doubtful whether she should yet question the Egyptian 
more closely with respect to his accusation of Glaucus, or 
whether she should wait till, without citing the authority, she 
should insinuate to Glaucus the accusation itself, she took her 
way to the gloomy mansion of Arbaces. 


1 The wonderful remains of the statue so called in the Museo Borbonico. 
The face, for sentiment and for feature, is the most beautiful of all which 
ancient sculpture has bequeathed to us. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 133 


CHAPTER VIL. 
IONE ENTRAPPED. — THE MOUSE TRIES TO GNAW THE NET. 


“Q pEAREST Nydia!” exclaimed Glaucus as he read the 
letter of Ione, “whitest-robed messenger that ever passed 
between earth and heaven, how, how shall I thank thee ? ” 

“JT am rewarded,” said the poor Thessalian. 

“To-morrow, — to-morrow! How shall I while the hours till 
then ?” 

The enamoured Greek would not let Nydia escape him, 
though she sought several times to leave the chamber. He 
made her recite to him over and over again every syllable of 
the brief conversation that had taken place between her and 
Ione; a thousand times, forgetting her misfortune, he ques- 
tioned her of the looks, of the countenance of his beloved; 
and then quickly again excusing his fault, he bade her recom- 
mence the whole recital which he had thus interrupted. The 
hours thus painful to Nydia passed rapidly and delightfully 
to him, and the twilight had already darkened ere he once 
more dismissed her to Ione with a fresh letter and with new 
flowers. Scarcely had she gone, than Clodius and several of 
his gay companions broke in upon him: they rallied him on 
his seclusion during the whole day, and his absence from his 
customary haunts; they invited him to accompany them to 
the various resorts in that lively city, which night and day 
proffered diversity to pleasure. Then, as now, in the south 
(for no land, perhaps, losing more of greatness has retained 
more of custom), it was the delight of the Italians to assemble 
in the evening; and, under the porticos of temples, or the 
shade of the groves that interspersed the streets, listening to 
music or the recitals of some inventive tale-teller, they hailed 
the rising moon with lbations of wine and the melodies of 
song. Glaucus was too happy to be unsocial; he longed to 
cast off the exuberance of joy that oppressed him. He will- 
ingly accepted the proposal of his comrades, and laugh- 


134 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


ingly they sallied out together down the populous and glitter- 
ing streets. 

In the mean time Nydia once more gained the house of 
Ione, who had long left it; she inquired indifferently whither 
Ione had gone. 

The answer arrested and appalled her. 

“To the house of Arbaces, — of the Egyptian ? Impossible!” 

“Tt is true, my little one,” said the slave, who had rephed 
to her question. ‘She has known the Egyptian long.” 

“Long! ye gods, yet Glaucus loves her!” murmured 
Nydia to herself. “And has,” asked she aloud, — “has she 
often visited him before ?” 

“‘ Never till now,” answered the slave. “If all the rumored 
scandal of Pompeii be true, it would be better, perhaps, if she 
had not ventured there at present. But she, poor mistress 
mine, hears nothing of that which reaches us; the talk of the 
vestibulum reaches not to the peristyle.” ? 

“ Never till now!” repeated Nydia. “ Art thou sure?” 

“Sure, pretty one; but what is that to thee or to us?” 

Nydia hesitated a moment, and then, putting down the 
flowers with which she had been charged, she called to the 
slave who had accompanied her, and left the house without 
saying another word. 

Not till she had got half-way back to the house of Glaucus 
did she break silence, and even then she only murmured 
inly : — 

“She does not dream, she cannot, of the dangers into 
which she has plunged. Fool that I am, shall I save her? 
Yes, for I love Glaucus better than myself.” 

When she arrived at the house of the Athenian, she learnt 
that he had gone out with a party of his friends, and none 
knew whither. He probably would not be home before 
midnight. , 

The Thessalian groaned; she sank upon a seat in the hall, 
and covered her face with her hands as if to collect her 
thoughts. ‘There is no time to be lost,” thought she, start- 
ing up. She turned to the slave who had accompanied her. 


1 Terence. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 185 


“Knowest thou,” said she, “if Ione has any relative, any 
intimate friend at Pompeii ? ” 

“Why, by Jupiter!” answered the slave, “art thou silly 
enough to ask the question? Jivery one in Pompeii knows 
that Ione has a brother who, young and rich, has been — under 
the rose I speak —so foolish as to become a priest of Isis.” 

“ A priest of Isis! O Gods! his name?” 

“ A peecides.” 

“‘T know it all,” muttered Nydia: “ brother and sister, then, 
are to be both victims! Apzcides! Yes, that was the name I 
heard in Ha! he well, then, knows the peril that sur- 
rounds his sister; I will go to him.” 

She sprang up at that thought, and taking the staff which 
always guided her steps, she hastened to the neighboring 
shrine of Isis. Till she had been under the guardianship of 
the kindly Greek, that staff had sufficed to conduct the poor 
blind girl from corner to corner of Pompeii. Every street, 
every turning in the more frequented parts, was familiar to 
her; and as the inhabitants entertained a tender and half- 
superstitious veneration for those subject to her infirmity, the 
passengers had always given way to her timid steps. Poor 
girl, she little dreamed that she should, ere very many days 
were passed, find her blindness her protection, and a guide far 
safer than the keenest eyes ! 

But since she had been under the roof of Glaucus, he had 
ordered a slave to accompany her always; and the poor devil 
thus appointed, who was somewhat of the fattest, and who, 
after having twice performed the journey to Ione’s house, now 
saw himself condemned to a third excursion (whither, the 
gods only knew), hastened after her, deploring his fate, and 
solemnly assuring Castor and Pollux that he believed the blind 
girl had the talaria of Mercury as well as the infirmity of 
Cupid. 

Nydia, however, required but little of his assistance to find 
her way to the popular temple of Isis: the space before it 
was now deserted, and she won without obstacle to the sacred 
rails. 

‘‘There is no one here,” said the fat slave. “ What dost 


136 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


thou want, or whom? Knowest thou not that the priests do 
not live in the temple ? ” 

“Call out,’ said she, impatiently ; “night and day there is 
always one flamen, at least, watching in the shrines of Isis.” 

The slave called: no one appeared. 

“Seest thou no one?” 

“No one.” 

“Thou mistakest; I hear a sigh: look again.” 

The slave, wondering and grumbling, cast round his heavy 
eyes, and before one of the altars, whose remains still crowd 
the narrow space, he beheld a form bending as in meditation. 

“‘T see a figure,” said he, “and by the white garments it is a 
priest.” 

“© flamen of Isis!” cried Nydia, “servant of the Most 
Ancient, hear me!” 

“ Who calls ?” said a low and melancholy voice. 

“One who has no common tidings to impart to a member of 
your body: I come to declare and not to ask oracles.” 

“With whom wouldst thou confer? ‘This is no hour for 
thy conference; depart, disturb me not: the night is sacred to 
the gods, the day to men.” 

“Methinks I know thy voice: thou art he whom I seek; 
yet I have heard thee speak but once before. Art thou not 
the priest Apzecides ? ” 

“Tam that man,” repled the priest, emerging from the 
altar and approaching the rail. 

“Thou art! the gods be praised!” Waving her hand to the 
slave, she bade him withdraw to a distance; and he, who 
naturally imagined some superstition connected, perhaps, with 
the safety of Ione, could alone lead her to the temple, obeyed, 
and seated himself on the ground at a little distance. 
“Hush!” said she, speaking quick and low; “art thou 
indeed Apezecides ?” 

“Tf thou knowest me, canst thou not recall my features ?” 

“JT am blind,” answered Nydia; “my eyes are in my ear, 
and that recognizes thee : yet swear that thou art he.” 

“By the gods I swear it, by my right hand, and by the 
moon!” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 137% 


“Hush; speak low; bend near; give me thy hand: know- 
est thou Arbaces? Hast thou laid flowers at the feet of the 
dead? Ah! thy hand is cold; hark yet! Hast thou taken 
the awful vow ?” 3 

‘Who art thou, whence comest thou, pale maiden ?” said 
Apecides, fearfully. “I know thee not. Thine is not the 
breast on which this head hath lain. I have never seen thee 
before.” 

“But thou hast heard my voice: no matter, those recollec- 
tions it should shame us both to recall. Listen; thou hast a 
sister.” 

“Speak, speak! What of her ?” 

“Thou knowest the banquets of the dead, stranger. It 
pleases thee, perhaps, to share them. Would it please thee 
to have thy sister a partaker? Would it please thee that 
Arbaces was her host?” : 

“OQ Gods, he dare not! Girl, if thou mockest me, tremble. 
I will tear thee limb from hmb!” 

“‘T speak the truth ; and while I speak, Ione is in the halls 
of Arbaces, —for the first time his guest. Thou knowest if 
there be peril in that first time! Farewell; I have fulfilled 
my charge.” 

“Stay! stay!” cried the priest, passing his wan hand over 
his brow. “If this be true, what — what can be done to save 
her? They may not admit me. I know not all the mazes of 
that intricate mansion. O Nemesis! justly am I punished.” 

“JT will dismiss yon slave: be thou my guide and com- 
rade; I will lead thee to the private door of the house; I will 
whisper to thee the word which admits. Take some weapon: 
it may be needful.” 

“ Wait an instant,” said Apecides, retiring into one of the 
cells that flank the temple, and reappearing in a few moments 
wrapped in a large cloak, which was then much worn by all 
classes, and which concealed his sacred dress. ‘“ Now,” he 
said, grinding his teeth, “if Arbaces hath dared to— but he 
dare not! he dare not! Why should I suspect him? Is he so 
base a villain? I will not think it; yet sophist, dark bewil- 
derer that he is! O Gods, protect! Hush! are there gods? 


138 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Yes, there is one goddess, at least, whose voice I can com: 
mand; and that is —— Vengeance!” 

Muttering these disconnected thoughts, Apzcides, followed 
by his silent and sightless companion, hastened through the 
most solitary paths to the house of the Egyptian. 

The slave, abruptly dismissed by Nydia, shrugged his shoul- 
ders, muttered an adjuration, and, nothing loth, rolled off to 
his cubiculum. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE SOLITUDE AND SOLILOQUY OF THE EGYPTIAN. — HIS 
CHARACTER ANALYZED. 


WE must go back a few hours in the progress of our story. 
At the first gray dawn of the day, which Glaucus had already 
marked with white, the Egyptian was seated, sleepless and 
alone, on the summit of the lofty and pyramidal tower which 
flanked his house. A tall parapet around it served as a wall, 
and conspired, with the height of the edifice and the gloomy 
trees that girded the mansion, to defy the prying eyes of curi- 
osity or observation. A table, on which lay a scroll filled with 
mystic figures, was before him. On high, the stars waxed dim 
and faint, and the shades of night melted from the sterile 
mountain-tops; only above Vesuvius there rested a deep and 
massy cloud, which for several days past had gathered darker 
and more solid over its summit. The struggle of night and 
day was more visible over the broad ocean, which stretched 
calm, like a gigantic lake, bounded by the circling shores that, 
covered with vines and foliage, and gleaming here and there 
with the white walls of sleeping cities, sloped to the scarce 
rippling waves. 

It was the hour above all others most sacred to the daring 
science of the Egyptian, —the science which would read our 
changeful destinies in the stars. 

He had filled his scroll, he had noted the moment and the 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 139 


sign; and, leaning upon his hand, he had surrendered himself 
to the thoughts which his calculation excited. 

“ Again do the stars forewarn me! Some danger, then, 
assuredly awaits me!” said he, slowly; ‘some danger, violent 
and sudden in its nature. The stars wear for me the same 
mocking menace which, if our chronicles do not err, they once 
_ wore for Pyrrhus, — for him, doomed to strive for all things, 
to enjoy none, —all attacking, nothing gaining, — battles with- 
out fruit, laurels without triumph, fame without success; at 
last made craven by his own superstitions, and slain like a dog 
by a tile from the hand of an old woman! Verily, the stars 
flatter when they give me a type in this fool of war, when 
they promise to the ardor of my wisdom the same results as to 
the madness of his ambition, — perpetual exercise, no certain 
goal; the Sisyphus task, the mountain and the stone, — the 
stone, a gloomy image, — it reminds me that I am threatened 
with somewhat of the same death as the Epirote. Let me 
look again. ‘Beware,’ say the shining prophets, ‘how thou 
passest under ancient roofs, or besieged walls, or overhanging 
cliffs; a stone, hurled from above, is charged by the curses 
of destiny against thee.’ And at no distant date from this 
comes the peril; but I cannot, of a certainty, read the day and 
hour. Well! if my glass runs low, the sands shall sparkle to 
the last. Yet,if I escape this peril, —ay, if I escape, — bright 
and clear as the moonlight track along the waters glows the 
rest of my existence. I see honors, happiness, success, shining 
upon every billow of the dark gulf beneath which I must sink 
at last. What, then! with such destinies deyond the peril, shall 
I succumb Zo the peril? My soul whispers hope, it sweeps 
exultingly beyond the boding hour, it revels in the future, 
its own courage is its fittest omen. If I were to perish so 
suddenly and so soon, the shadow of death would darken over 
me, and I should feel the icy presentiment of my doom. My 
soul would express, in sadness and in gloom, its forecast of the 
dreary Orcus. But it smiles; it assures me of deliverance.” 

As he thus concluded his soliloquy, the Egyptian involun- 
tarily rose. He paced rapidly the narrow space of that star- 
roofed floor, and, pausing at the parapet, looked again upon 


140 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


the gray and melancholy heavens. The chills of the faint 
dawn came refreshingly upon his brow, and gradually his 
mind resumed its natural and collected calm. He withdrew 
his gaze from the stars, as, one after one, they receded into 
the depths of heaven; and his eyes fell over the broad expanse 
below. Dim in the silenced port of the city rose the masts of 
the galleys; along that mart of luxury and of labor was stilled 
the mighty hum. No lights, save here and there from be- 
fore the columns of a temple, or in the porticos of the voiceless 
forum, broke the wan and fluctuating light of the struggling 
morn. From the heart of the torpid city, so soon to vibrate 
with a thousand passions, there came no sound; the streams 
of life circulated not: they lay locked under the ice of sleep. 
From the huge space of the amphitheatre, with its stony seats 
rising one above the other, — coiled and round as some slum- 
bering monster, — rose a thin and ghastly mist, which gathered 
darker, and more dark, over the scattered foliage that gloomed 
in its vicinity. The city seemed as, after the awful change of 
seventeen ages, it seems now to the traveller, —a City of the 
Dead.} 

The ocean itself, that serene and tideless sea, lay scarce 
less hushed, save that from its deep bosom came, softened by 
the distance, a faint and regular murmur, like the breathing of 
its sleep; and curving far, as with outstretched arms, into the 
green and beautiful land, it seemed unconsciously to clasp to 
its breast the cities sloping to its margin, Stabie,? and Her- 
culaneum, and Pompeii, —those children and darlings of the 
‘ deep. ‘Ye slumber,” said the Egyptian, as he scowled over 
the cities, the boast and flower of Campania; “ye slumber! 
would it were the eternal repose of death! As ye now, jewels 
in the crown of empire, so once were the cities of the Nile. 
Their greatness hath perished from them, they sleep amidst 
ruins, their palaces and their shrines are tombs, the serpent 


1 When Sir Walter Scott visited Pompeii with Sir William Gell, almost his 
only remark was the exclamation, “'The City of the Dead, —the City of the 
Dead!” 

2 Stabize was indeed no longer a city, vut it was still a favorite site for the 
villas of the rich. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 141 


coils in the grass of their streets, the lizard basks in their 
solitary halls. By that mysterious law of nature, which hum- 
bles one to exalt the other, ye have thriven upon their ruins; 
thou, haughty Rome, hast usurped the glories of Sesostris 
and Semiramis; thou art a robber, clothing thyself with their 
spoils! And these, slaves in thy triumph, that I (the last 
son of forgotten monarchs) survey below, reservoirs of thine 
all-pervading power and luxury, I curse as I behold. The 
time shall come when Egypt shall be avenged; when the 
barbarian’s steed shall make his manger in the Golden House 
of Nero; and thou that hast sown the wind with conquest 
shalt reap the harvest in the whirlwind of desolation!” 

As the Egyptian uttered a prediction which fate so fearfully 
fulfilled, a more solemn and boding image of ill omen never 
occurred to the dreams of painter or of poet. The morning 
light which can pale so wanly even the young cheek of beauty, 
gave his majestic and stately features almost the colors of the 
grave, with the dark hair falling massively around them, and 
the dark robes flowing long and loose, and the arm outstretched 
from that lofty eminence, and the glittering eyes, fierce with 
a savage gladness, half prophet and half fiend ! 

He turned his gaze from the city and the ocean; before him 
lay the vineyards and the meadows of the rich Campania. 
The gate and walls — ancient, half Pelasgic—of the city, 
seemed not to bound its extent. Villas and villages stretched 
on every side up the ascent of Vesuvius, not nearly then so 
steep or so lofty as at present. For as Rome itself is built on 
an exhausted volcano, so in similar security the inhabitants of 
the South tenanted the green and vine-clad places around a 
voleano whose fires they believed at rest forever. From the 
gate stretched the long street of tombs, various in size and 
architecture, by which, on that side, the city is yet approached. 
Above all rose the cloud-capped summit of the Dread Moun- 
tain, with the shadows, now dark, now light, betraying the 
mossy caverns and ashy rocks, which testified the past con- 
flagrations, and might have prophesied — but man is blind — 
that which was to come! 

Difficult was it then and there to guess the causes why the 


142 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


tradition of the place wore so gloomy and stern a hue; why, 
in those smiling plains, for miles around —to Baize and Mise- 
num—the poets had imagined the entrance and thresholds 
of their hell, — their Acheron, and their fabled Styx; why, in 
those Phlegre,! now laughing with the vine, they placed the 
battles of the gods, and supposed the daring Titans to have 
sought the victory of heaven, — save, indeed, that yet, in yon 
seared and blasted summit, fancy might think to read the 
characters of the Olympian thunderbolt. 

But it was neither the rugged height of the still veleane, 
nor the fertility of the sloping fields, nor the melancholy 
avenue of tombs, nor the glittering villas of a polished and 
luxurious people, that now arrested the eye of the Egyptian. 
On one part of the landscape the mountain of Vesuvius de- 
scended to the plain in a narrow and uncultivated ridge, 
broken here and there by jagged crags and copses of wild 
foliage. At the base of this lay a marshy and unwholesome 
pool; and the intent gaze of Arbaces caught the outline of 
some living form moving by the marshes, and stooping ever 
and anon as if to pluck its rank produce. 

“Ho!” said he, aloud, “I have, then, another companion 
in these unworldly night-watches. The witch of Vesuvius is 
abroad. What! doth she, too, as the credulous imagine, — 
doth she, too, learn the lore of the great stars? Hath she 
been uttering foul magic to the moon, or culling (as her pauses 
betoken) foul herbs from the venomous marsh? Well, I must 
see this fellow-laborer. Whoever strives to know, learns that 
no human lore is despicable. Despicable only you, ye fat and 
bloated things, slaves of luxury, sluggards in thought, who, 
cultivating nothing but the barren sense, dream that its poor 
soul can produce alike the myrtle and the laurel. No, the 
wise only can enjoy; to us only ¢rwe luxury is given, when 
mind, brain, invention, experience, thought, learning, imagina- 
tion, all contribute like rivers to swell the seas of sENsE! — 
Ione!” 

As Arbaces uttered that last and charmed word, his thoughts 
sank at once into a more deep and profound channel. His . 


1 Or, Phlegrai Campi; viz., scorched or burned fields. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 143 


steps paused; he took not his eyes from the ground; once or 
twice he smiled joyously, and then, as he turned from his 
place of vigil, and sought his couch, he muttered, “If death 
frowns so near, I will say at least that I have lived, — Ione 
shall be mine!” 

The character of Arbaces was one of those intricate and 
varied webs, in which even the mind that sat within it was 
sometimes confused and perplexed. In him, the son of a 
fallen dynasty, the outcast of a sunken people, was that spirit 
of discontented pride which ever rankles in one of a sterner 
mould, who feels himself inexorably shut from the sphere in 
which his fathers shone, and to which nature as well as birth 
no less entitles himself. This sentiment hath no benevolence; 
it wars with society, it sees enemies in mankind. But with 
this sentiment did not go its common companion, poverty. 
Arbaces possessed wealth which equalled that of most of the 
Roman nobles; and this enabled him to gratify to the utmost 
the passions which had no outlet in business or ambition. 
Travelling from clime to clime, and beholding still Rome 
everywhere, he increased both his hatred of society and his 
passion for pleasure. He was in a vast prison, which, how- 
ever, he could fill with the ministers of luxury. He could not 
escape from the prison, and his only object, therefore, was to 
give it the character of the palace. The Egyptians, from — 
the earliest time, were devoted to the joys of sense; Arbaces 
inherited both their appetite for sensuality and the glow of 
imagination which struck light from its rottenness. But still, 
unsocial in his pleasures as in his graver pursuits, and brook- 
ing neither superior nor equal, he admitted few to his com- 
panionship save the willing slaves of his profligacy. He was 
the solitary lord of a crowded harem; but, with all, he felt 
condemned to that satiety which is the constant curse of men 
whose intellect is above their pursuits, and that which once 
had been the impulse of passion froze down to the ordinance 
of custom. From the disappointments of sense he sought to 
raise himself by the cultivation of knowledge; but ‘as it was 
not his object to serve mankind, so he despised that knowl- 
edge which is practical and useful. His dark imagination 


144 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


loved to exercise itself in those more visionary and obscure 
researches which are ever the most delightful to a wayward 
and solitary mind, and to which he himself was invited by the 
daring pride of his disposition and the mysterious traditions 
of his clime. Dismissing faith in the confused creeds of the 
heathen world, he reposed the greatest faith in the power of 
human wisdom. He did not know (perhaps no one in that 
age distinctly did) the limits which Nature imposes upon our 
discoveries. Seeing that the higher we mount in knowledge 
the more wonders we behold, he imagined that Nature not 
only worked miracles in her ordinary course, but that she 
might, by the cabala of some master soul, be diverted from 
that course itself. Thus he pursued science, across her ap- 
pointed boundaries, into the land of perplexity and shadow. 
From the truths of astronomy he wandered into astrological 
fallacy ; from the secrets of chemistry he passed into the spec- 
tral labyrinth of magic; and he who could be sceptical as to 
the power of the gods, was credulously superstitious as to the 
power of man. 

The cultivation of magic, carried at that day to a singular 
height among the would-be wise, was especially Eastern in its 
origin; it was alien to the early philosophy of the Greeks, 
nor had it been received by them with favor until Ostanes, 
who accompanied the army of Xerxes, introduced, amongst the 
simple credulities of Hellas, the solemn superstitions of Zo- 
roaster. Under the Roman emperors it had become, however, 
naturalized at Rome (a meet subject for Juvenal’s fiery wit). 
Intimately connected with magic was the worship of Isis, and 
the Egyptian religion was the means by which was extended 
the devotion to Egyptian sorcery. The theurgic, or benevo- 
lent magic, the goetic, or dark and evil necromancy, were 
alike in pre-eminent repute during the first century of the 
Christian era; and the marvels of Faustus are not comparable 
to those of Apollonius. Kings, courtiers, and sages, all trem- 
bled before the professors of the dread science. And not the 
least remarkable of his tribe was the formidable and profound 
Arbaces. His fame and his discoveries were known to all the 


1 See note (a) at the end. 


Be toe, eet 
ee 


bsg) 
APEe 
4 wie 4 af 


tye 


aN RR tat 
rs a 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 145 


cultivators of magic; they even survived himself. But it was 
not by his real name that he was honored by the sorcerer and 
the sage: his real name, indeed, was unknown in Italy, for 
“ Arbaces” was not a genuinely Egyptian but a Median appel- 
lation, which, in the admixture and unsettlement of the ancient 
races, had become common in the country of the Nile; and 
there were various reasons, not only of pride, but of policy 
(for in youth he had conspired against the majesty of Rome), 
which induced him to conceal his true name and rank. But 
neither by the name he had borrowed from the Mede, nor by 
that which in the colleges of Egypt would have attested his 
origin from kings, did the cultivators of magic acknowledge 
the potent master. He received from their homage a more 
mystic appellation, and was long remembered in Magna Greecia 
and the Eastern plains by the name of “ Hermes, the Lord 
of the Flaming Belt.” His subtle speculations and boasted 
attributes of wisdom, recorded in various volumes, were 
among those tokens “of the curious arts” which the Chris- 
tian converts most joyfully, yet most fearfully, burned at 
Ephesus, depriving posterity of the proofs of the cunning of 
the fiend. 

The conscience of Arbaces was solely of the intellect; it was 
awed by no moral laws. If man imposed these checks upon 
the herd, so he believed that man, by superior wisdom, could 
raise himself above them. “If [he reasoned] I have the 
genius to impose laws, have I not the right to command my 
own creations? Still more, have I not the right to control, to 
evade, to scorn, the fabrications of yet meaner intellects than 
my own?” ‘Thus, if he were a villain, he justified his villany 
by what ought to have made him virtuous; namely, the eleva- 
tion of his capacities. 

Most men have more or less the passion for power; in 
Arbaces that passion corresponded exactly to his character. 
Tt was not the passion for an external and brute authority. 
He desired not the purple and the fasces, the insignia of vul- 
gar command. His youthful ambition once foiled and de- 
feated, scorn had supplied its place. His pride, his contempt 
for: Rome, — Rome, which had become the synonym of the 

vou. 1. —10 


| 146 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


world (Rome, whose haughty name he regarded with the same 
disdain as that which Rome herself lavished upon the bar- 
barian), did not permit him to aspire to sway over others, 
for that would render him at once the tool or creature of the 
emperor. He, the Son of the Great Race of Rameses, — he 
execute the orders of, and receive his power from another ! — 
the mere notion filled him with rage. But in rejecting an 
ambition that coveted nominal distinctions, he but indulged 
the more in the ambition to rule the heart. Honoring mental 
power as the greatest of earthly gifts, he loved to feel that 
power palpably in himself, by extending it over all whom he 
encountered. Thus had he ever sought the young, — thus had 
he ever fascinated and controlled them. He loved to find sub- 
jects in men’s souls, —to rule over an invisible and immaterial 
empire! Had he been less sensual and less wealthy, he might 
have sought to become the founder of a new religion. As it 
was, his energies were checked by his pleasures. Besides, 
however, the vague love of this moral sway, (vanity so dear to 
sages !) he was influenced by a singular and dreamlike devotion 
to all that belonged to the mystic Land his ancestors had 
swayed. Although he disbelieved in her deities, he believed 
in the allegories they represented (or rather he interpreted 
those allegories anew). He loved to keep alive the worship 
of Egypt, because he thus maintained the shadow and the 
recollection of her power. He loaded, therefore, the altars of 
Osiris and of Isis with regal donations, and was ever anxious 
to dignify their priesthood by new and wealthy converts. 
The vow taken, the priesthood embraced, he usually chose the 
comrades of his pleasures from those whom he had made his 
victims, — partly because he thus secured to himself their 
secrecy, partly because he thus yet more confirmed to him- 
self his peculiar power. Hence the motives of his conduct to 
Apecides, strengthened as these were, in that instance, by his 
passion for Ione. 

- He had seldom lived long in one place; but as he grew older, 
he grew more wearied of the excitement of new scenes, and 
he had sojourned among the delightful cities of Campania 
for a period which surprised even himself. In fact, his pride 


-THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 147 | 


somewhat crippled his choice of residence. His unsuccessful 
conspiracy excluded him from those burning climes which he 
deemed of right his own hereditary possession, and which now 
cowered, supine and sunken, under the wings of the Roman 
eagle. Rome herself was hateful to his indignant soul; nor 
did he love to find his riches rivalled by the minions of the 
court, and cast into comparative poverty by the mighty mag- 
nificence of the court itself. The Campanian cities proffered 
to him all that his nature craved, —the luxuries of an un- 
equalled climate, the imaginative refinements of a voluptuous 
civilization. He was removed from the sight of a superior 
wealth ; he was without rivals to his riches; he was free from 
the spies of a jealous court. As long as he was rich, none 
pried into his conduct. He pursued the dark tenor of his way 
undisturbed and secure. 

It is the curse of sensualists never to love till the pleasures 
of sense begin to pall; their ardent youth is frittered away in 
countless desires: their hearts are exhausted. So, ever chas- 
ing love, and taught by a restless imagination to exaggerate, 
perhaps, its charms, the Egyptian had spent all the glory of 
his years without attaining the object of his desires. The 
beauty of to-morrow succeeded the beauty of to-day, and the 
shadows bewildered him in his pursuit of the substance. 
When, two years before the present date, he beheld Ione, he 
saw for the first time one whom he imagined he could Jove. 
He stood then upon that bridge of life from which man sees 
before him distinctly a wasted youth on the one side and the 
darkness of approaching age upon the other, —a time in which 
we are more than ever anxious, perhaps, to secure to ourselves, 
ere it be yet too late, whatever we have been taught to con- 
sider necessary to the enjoyment of a life of which the brighter 
half is gone. 

With an earnestness and a patience which he had never 
before commanded for his pleasures, Arbaces had devoted 
himself to win the heart of Ione. It did not content him 
‘to love, he desired to be loved. In this hope he had watched 
the expanding youth of the beautiful Neapolitan ; and know- 
ing the influence that the mind possesses over those who are 


148 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 


taught to cultivate the mind, he had contributed willingly to 
form the genius and enlighten the intellect of Ione, in the 
hope that she would be thus able to appreciate what he felt 
would be his best claim to her affection; namely, a character 
which, however criminal and perverted, was rich in its origi- 
nal elements of strength and grandeur. When he felt that 
character to be acknowledged, he willingly allowed, nay, 
encouraged her, to mix among the idle votaries of pleasure, 
in the belief that her soul, fitted for higher commune, would 
miss the companionship of his own, and that in comparison 
with others she would learn to love herself. He had forgot 
that as the sunflower to the sun, so youth turns to youth, 
until his jealousy of Glaucus suddenly apprised him of his 
error. From that moment, though, as we have seen, he knew 
not the extent of his danger, a fiercer and more tumultuous 
direction was given to a passion long controlled. Nothing 
kindles the fire of love like a sprinkling of the anxieties of 
jealousy ; it takes then a wilder, a more resistless flame; it 
forgets its softness ; 1t ceases to be tender; it assumes some- 
thing of the intensity, of the ferocity, of hate. 

Arbaces resolved to lose no further time upon cautious and 
perilous preparations; he resolved to place an irrevocable bar- 
rier between himself and his rivals; he resolved to possess 
himself of the person of Ione; not that in his present love, 
so long nursed and fed by hopes purer than those of passion 
alone, he would have been contented with that mere posses- 
sion. He desired the heart, the soul, no less than the beauty 
of Ione; but he imagined that once separated by a daring 
crime from the rest of mankind, once bound to Ione by a tie 
that memory could not break, she would be driven to con- 
centrate her thoughts in him, that his arts would complete 
his conquest, and that, according to the true moral of the 
Roman and the Sabine, the empire obtained by force would 
be cemented by gentler means. This resolution was yet more 
confirmed in him by his belief in the prophecies of the stars ; 
they had long foretold to him this year, and even the present 
month, as the epoch of some dread disaster menacing life 
itself. He was driven to a certain and limited date. He 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 149 


resolved to crowd, monarch-like, on his funeral pyre all that 
his soul held most dear. In his own words, if he were to 
die, he resolved to feel that he had lived, and that Ione should 
be his own. 


CHAPTER IX. 


WHAT BECOMES OF IONE IN THE HOUSE OF ARBACES, — THE 
FIRST SIGNAL OF THE WRATH OF THE DREAD FOE. 


WHEN Ione entered the spacious hall of the Egyptian, the 
same awe which had crept over her brother impressed itself 
also upon her; there seemed to her as to him something omi- 
nous and warning in the still and mournful faces of those 
dread Theban monsters, whose majestic and passionless fea- 
tures the marble so well portrayed : — 


“Their look with the reach of past ages was wise, 
And the soul of eternity thought in their eyes.” 


The tall Ethiopian slave grinned as he admitted her, and 
motioned to her to proceed. Half-way up the hall she was 
met by Arbaces himself, in festive robes, which glittered with 
jewels. Although it was broad day without, the mansion, 
according to the practice of the luxurious, was artificially 
darkened, and the lamps cast their still and odor-giving light 
over the rich floors and ivory roofs. 

“ Beautiful Ione!” said Arbaces, as he bent to touch her 
hand, “it is you that have eclipsed the day; it is your eyes 
that light up the halls; it is your breath which fills them with 
perfumes.” 

“You must not talk to me thus,” said Ione, smiling; “ you 
forget that your lore has sufficiently instructed my mind to 
render these graceful flatteries to my person unwelcome. It 
was you who taught me to disdain adulation: will you unteach 
your pupil ? ” 

There was something so frank and charming in the manner of 
Ione, as she thus spoke, that the Egyptian was more than ever 


150 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


enamoured, and more than ever disposed to renew the offence 
he had committed; he, however, answered quickly and gayly, 
and hastened to renew the conversation. 

He led her through the various chambers of a house which 
seemed to contain to her eyes, inexperienced to other splendor 
than the minute elegance of Campanian cities, the treasures of 
the world. 

In the walls were set pictures of inestimable art; the lights 
shone over statues of the noblest age of Greece. Cabinets of 
gems, each cabinet itself a gem, filled up the interstices of the 
columns; the most precious woods lined the thresholds and 
composed the doors; gold and jewels seemed lavished all 
around. Sometimes they were alone in these rooms; some- 
times they passed through silent rows of slaves, who, kneeling 
as she passed, proffered to her offerings of bracelets, of chains, 
of gems, which the Egyptian vainly entreated her to receive. 

“TT have often heard,” said she, wonderingly, “that you 
were rich; but I never dreamed of the amount of your 
wealth.” | 

“Would I could coin it all,” replied the Egyptian, “into 
one crown, which I might place upon that snowy brow!” 

“ Alas! the weight would crush me; I should be a second 
Tarpeia,”’ answered Ione, laughingly. . 

“But thou dost not disdain riches, O Ione! they know not 
what life is capable of who are not wealthy. Gold is the great 
magician of earth: it realizes our dreams, it gives them the 
power of a god; there is a grandeur, a sublimity, in its pos- 
session; it is the mightiest, yet the most obedient of our 
slaves.” 

The artful Arbaces sought to dazzle the young Neapolitan 
by his treasures and his eloquence; he sought to awaken in 
her the desire to be mistress of what she surveyed; he hoped 
that she would confound the owner with the possessions, and 
that the charms of his wealth would be reflected on himself. 
Meanwhile Ione was secretly somewhat uneasy at the gallan- 
tries which escaped from those lips, which, till lately, had 
seemed to disdain the common homage we pay to beauty ; and 
with that delicate subtlety which woman alone possesses, she 


- THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL. 151 


sought to ward off shafts deliberately aimed, and to laugh or 
to talk away the meaning from his warming language. Noth- 
ing in the world is more pretty than that same species of 
defence; it is the charm of the African necromancer who 
professed with a feather to turn aside the winds. 

The Egyptian was intoxicated and subdued by her grace 
even more than by her beauty. It was with difficulty that 
he suppressed his emotions; alas! the feather was only power- 
ful against the summer breezes it would be the sport of the 
storm. ' 

Suddenly, as they stood in one hall, which was surrounded 
by draperies of silver and white, the Egyptian clapped his 
hands, and, as if by enchantment, a banquet rose from the 
floor; a couch, or throne, with a crimson canopy, ascended 
simultaneously at the feet of Ione, and at the same instant 
from behind the curtains swelled invisible and softest music. 

Arbaces placed himself at the feet of Ione; and children, 
young and beautiful as Loves, ministered to the feast. 

The feast was over, the music sank into a low and subdued 
strain, and Arbaces thus addressed his beautiful guest : — 

‘Hast thou never, in this dark and uncertain world — hast 
thou never aspired, my pupil, to look beyond; hast thou never 
wished to put aside the veil of futurity, and to behold on the 
shores of Fate the shadowy images of things to be? For it is 
not the past alone that has its ghosts: each event to come has 
also its spectrum, its shade; when the hour arrives, life enters 
it, the shadow becomes corporeal and walks the world. Thus, 
in the land beyond the grave are ever two impalpable and 
spiritual hosts, — the things to be, the things that have been! 
If by our wisdom we can penetrate that land, we see the one 
as the other, and learn, as J have learned, not alone the 
mysteries of the dead, but also the destiny of the living.” 

“ As thou hast learned! Can wisdom attain so far ?” 

“ Wilt thou prove my knowledge, Ione, and behold the 
representation of thine own fate? Itis adrama more strik- 
ing than those of Aischylus: it is one I have prepared for 
thee, if thou wilt see the shadows perform their part.” 

The Neapolitan trembled; she thought of Glaucus, and 


152 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


sighed as well as trembled; were their destinies to be united? 
Half incredulous, half believing, half awed, half alarmed by 
the words of her strange host, she remained for some mo- 
ments silent, and then answered, — 

“Tt may revolt, it may terrify; the knowledge of the future 
will perhaps only embitter the present!” 

“Not so, Ione. I have myself looked upon thy future lot, 
and the ghosts of thy Future bask in the garden of Elysium : 
amidst the asphodel and the rose they prepare the garlands of 
thy sweet destiny, and the Fates, so harsh to others, weave 
only for thee the web of happiness and love. Wilt thou then 
come and behold thy doom, so that thou mayest enjoy it 
beforehand ? ” 

Again the heart of Ione murmured “ Glaucus ;” she uttered 
a half-audible assent; the Egyptian rose, and taking her by 
the hand, he led her across the banquet-room; the curtains 
withdrew, as by magic hands, and the music broke forth in a 
louder and gladder strain; they passed a row of columns, on 
either side of which fountains cast aloft their fragrant waters ; 
they descended by broad and easy steps into a garden. The 
eve had. commenced; the moon was already high in heaven, 
and those sweet flowers that sleep by day, and fill with in- 
effable odors the airs of night, were thickly scattered amidst 
alleys cut through the starlit foliage; or, gathered in bas- 
kets, lay like offerings at the feet of the frequent statues that 
gleamed along their path. 

“ Whither wouldst thou lead me, Arbaces?” said Ione, 
wonderingly. 

“But yonder,” said he, pointing to a small building which 
stood at the end of the vista. ‘It is a temple consecrated to 
the Fates ; our rites require such holy ground.” 

They passed into a narrow hall, at the end of which hung 
a sable curtain. Arbaces lifted it; Ione entered, and found 
herself in total darkness. 

“Be not alarmed,” said the Egyptian, “the light will rise 
instantly.” While he so spoke, a soft and warm and gradual 
light diffused itself around; as it spread over each object, 
Tone perceived that she was in an apartment of moderate 


* THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 153 


size, hung everywhere with black; a couch with draperies of 
the same hue was beside her. In the centre of the room was 
a small altar, on which stood a tripod of bronze. At one side, 
upon a lofty column of granite, was a colossal head of the 
blackest marble, which, she perceived, by the crown of wheat- 
ears that encircled the brow, represented the great Egyptian 
goddess. Arbaces stood before the altar: he had laid his gar- 
land on the shrine, and seemed occupied with pouring into the 
tripod the contents of a brazen vase. Suddenly from that 
tripod leaped into life a blue, quick, darting, irregular flame ; 
the Egyptian drew back to the side of Ione, and muttered 
some words in a language unfamiliar to her ear; the curtain 
at the back of the altar waved tremulously to and fro: it 
parted slowly, and in the aperture which was thus made, 
Ione beheld an indistinct and pale landscape, which gradually 
erew brighter and clearer as she gazed; at length she dis- 
covered plainly trees and rivers and meadows, and all the 
beautiful diversity of the richest earth. At length, before 
the landscape a dim shadow glided; it rested opposite to 
Ione; slowly the same charm seemed to operate upon it as 
over the rest of the scene; it took form and shape, and lo, 
in its feature and in its form Ione beheld herself ! 

Then the scene behind the spectre faded away, and was suc- 
ceeded by the representation of a gorgeous palace; a throne 
was raised in the centre of its hall, the dim forms of slaves 
and guards were ranged around it, and a pale hand held over 
the throne the lkeness of a diadem. 

A new actor now appeared; he was clothed from head to 
foot ina dark robe, his face was concealed, he knelt at the 
feet of the shadowy Ione, he clasped her hand, he pointed to 
the throne, as if to invite her to ascend it. 

The Neapolitan’s heart beat violently. “Shall the shadow 
disclose itself?” whispered a voice beside her, the voice of 
Arbaces. 

“¢ Ah, yes!” answered Ione, softly. 

Arbaces raised his hand; the spectre seemed to drop the 
mantle that concealed its form, and Ione shrieked: it was 
Arbaces himself that thus knelt before her. 


154 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“This is, indeed, thy fate!” whispered again the Egyptian’s 
voice in her ear; “and thou art destined to be the bride of 
Arbaces.” 

Jone started; the black curtain closed over the phantasma- 
goria, and Arbaces himself — the [real, the living Arbaces — 
was at her feet. 

“Qh, Ione!” said he, passionately gazing upon her, “listen 
to one who has long struggled vainly with his love. I adore 
thee! The Fates do not lie; thou art destined to be mine. I 
have sought the world around, and found none lke thee. 
From my youth upward I have sighed for such as thou art. 
I have dreamed till I saw thee: I wake, and I behold thee. 
Turn not away from me, Ione; think not of me as thou hast 
thought; I am not that being, cold, insensate, and morose, 
which I have seemed to thee. Never woman had lover so 
devoted, so passionate as I will be to Ione. Do not struggle in 
my clasp: see, I release thy hand. Take it from me if thou 
wilt; well, beit so! But do not reject me, Ione; do not rashly 
reject: judge of thy power over him whom thou canst thus 
transform. I, who never knelt to mortal being, kneel to thee. 
I, who have commanded fate, receive from thee my own. 
Tone, tremble not; thou art my queen, my goddess: be my 
bride! All the wishes thou canst form shall be fulfilled. The 
ends of the earth shall minister to thee: pomp, power, lux- 
ury shall be thy slaves. Arbaces shall have no ambition 
save the pride of obeying thee. Ione, turn upon me those 
eyes; shed upon me thy smile. Dark is my soul when thy 
face is hid from it: shine over me, my sun, my heaven, my 
daylight! Ione, Ione, do not reject my love!”: 

Alone, and in the power of this singular and fearful man, 
Ione was yet not terrified; the respect of his language, the 
softness of his voice, reassured her, and in her own purity 
she felt protection. But she was confused, astonished; it was 
some moments before she could recover the power of reply. 

“Rise, Arbaces!” said she at length; andshe resigned to 
him once more her hand, which she as quickly withdrew again 
when she felt upon it the burning pressure of his lips. “Rise! 
and if thou art serious, if thy language be in earnest —” 


-THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 155 


“Tf /” said he, tenderly. 

“ Well, then, listen to me; you have been my guardian, my 
friend, my monitor; for this new character I was not prepared. 
Think not,” she added quickly, as she saw his dark’eyes glitter 
with the fierceness of his passion, —“ think not that I scorn, 
that I am not touched, that I am not honored by this homage ; 
but say, canst thou hear me calmly ? ” 

“Ay, though thy words were lightning, and could blast 
me!” 

“T love another!” said Ione, blushingly, but in a firm 
VECO Si he: 

“‘By the gods! by hell!” shouted Arbaces, rising to his full- 
est height; “dare not tell me that, dare not mock me: it is 
impossible! Whom hast thouseen, whom known ? Oh, Ione! 
it is thy woman’s invention, thy woman’s art that speaks ; thou 
wouldst gain time. I have surprised, I have terrified thee. 
Do with me as thou wilt; say that thou lovest not me, but say 
not that thou lovest another!” 

“ Alas!” began Ione; and then, appalled before his sudden 
and unlooked-for violence, she burst into tears. 

Arbaces came nearer to her; his breath glowed fiercely on 
her cheek; he wound his arms round her: she sprang from his 
embrace. In the struggle a tablet fell from her bosom on the 
eround; Arbaces perceived, and seized it; it was the letter 
that morning received from Glaucus. Jone sank upon the 
couch, half dead with terror. 

Rapidly the eyes of Arbaces ran over the writing; the Nea- 
politan did not dare to gaze upon him. She did not see the 
deadly paleness that came over his countenance; she marked 
not his withering frown, nor the quivering of his lip, nor the 
convulsions that heaved his breast. He read it to the end; 
and then, as the letter fell from his hand, he said in a voice of 
deceitful calmness, — 

“Ts the writer of this the man thou lovest ? ” 

Ione sobbed, but answered not. 

“Speak!” he rather shrieked than said. 

“It is—it is!” 

“ And his name —it is written here — his name is Glaucus!” 


156 ‘ THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Tone, clasping her hands, looked round as for succor or 
escape. 

“Then hear me,” said Arbaces, sinking his voice into a 
whisper; “thou shalt go to thy tomb rather than to his arms! 
What! thinkest thou Arbaces will brook a rival such as this 
puny Greek? What! thinkest thou that he has. watched the 
fruit ripen to yield it to another? Pretty fool—no! Thou 
art mine —all— only mine: and thus, thus I seize and claim 
thee!” As he spoke, he caught Ione in his arms; and in that 
ferocious grasp was all the energy—less of love than of 
revenge. 

But to Ione despair gave supernatural strength; she again 
tore herself from him; she rushed to that part of the room 
by which she had entered; she half withdrew the curtain; he 
seized her; again she broke away from him and fell, ex- 
hausted, and with a loud shriek, at the base of the column 
which supported the head of the Egyptian goddess. Arbaces 
paused for a moment, as if to regain his breath, and then once 
more darted upon his prey. 

At that instant the curtain was rudely torn aside; the Egyp- 
tian felt a fierce and strong grasp upon his shoulder. He 
turned; he beheld before him the flashing eyes of Glaucus, 
and the pale, worn, but menacing countenance of Apecides. 
“ Ah,” he muttered, as he glared from one to the other, “ what 
Fury hath sent ye hither ?” 

“ Ate,” answered Glaucus; and he closed at once with the 
Egyptian. Meanwhile Apecides raised his sister, now lifeless, 
from the ground; his strength, exhausted by a mind long over- 
wrought, did not suffice to bear her away, ight and delicate 
though her shape: he placed her, therefore, on the couch, and 
stood over her with a brandishing knife, watching the contest 
between Glaucus and the Egyptian, and ready to plunge his 
weapon in the bosom of Arbaces should he be victorious in the 
struggle. There is, perhaps, nothing on earth so terrible as the 
naked and unarmed contest of animal strength, no weapon but 
those which Nature supplies to rage. Both the antagonists 
were now locked in each other’s grasp, the hand of each seeking 
the throat of the other, the face drawn back, the fierce eyes 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 157 


flashing, the muscles strained, the veins swelled, the lips apart, 
the teeth set; both were strong beyond the ordinary power of 
men, both animated by relentless wrath; they coiled, they 
wound around each other; they rocked to and fro, they swayed 
from end to end of their confined arena, they uttered cries of 
ire and revenge; they were now before the altar, now at the 
base of the column where the struggle had commenced : they 
drew back for breath,— Arbaces leaning against the column, 
Glaucus a few paces apart. 

“QO ancient goddess!” exclaimed Arbaces, clasping the col- 
umn, and raising his eyes toward the sacred image it supported, 
“protect thy chosen; proclaim thy vengeance against this 
thing of an upstart creed, who with sacrilegious violence pro- 
fanes thy resting-place and assails thy servant.” 

As he spoke, the still and vast features of the goddess 
seemed suddenly to glow with life; through the black marble, 
as through a transparent veil, flushed luminously a crimson 
and burning hue; around the head played and darted corus- 
cations of vivid lightning; the eyes became hke balls of lurid 
fire, and seemed fixed in withering and intolerable wrath upon 
the countenance of the Greek. Awed and appalled by this 
sudden and mystic answer to the prayer of his foe, and not 
free from the hereditary superstitions of his race, the cheeks 
of Glaucus paled before that strange and ghastly animation of 
the marble. His knees knocked together; he stood seized with 
a divine panic, dismayed, aghast, half unmanned before his 
foe. Arbaces gave him not breathing-time to recover his 
stupor. “Die, wretch!” he shouted, in a voice of thunder, as 
he sprang upon the Greek; “the Mighty Mother claims thee 
as a living sacrifice!” Taken thus by surprise in the first 
consternation of his superstitious fears, the Greek lost his 
footing. The marble floor was as smooth as glass; he slid, he 
fell. Arbaces planted his foot on the breast of his fallen foe. 
Apecides, taught by his sacred profession as well as by his 
knowledge of Arbaces, to distrust all miraculous interpositions, 
had not shared the dismay of his companion. He rushed for- 
ward; his knife gleamed in the air; the watchful Egyptian 
caught his arm as it descended: one wrench of his powerful 


158 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


hand tore the weapon from the weak grasp of the priest, one 
sweeping blow stretched him to the earth; with a loud and 
exultant yell Arbaces brandished the knife on high. Glaucus 
gazed upon his impending fate with unwinking eyes, and in 
the stern and scornful resignation of a fallen gladiator: when, 
at that awful instant, the floor shook under them with a rapid 
and convulsive throe, a mightier spirit than that of the Egyp- 
tian was abroad, —a giant and crushing power, before which 
sunk into sudden impotence his passion and his arts. Iv woke, 
it stirred, — that Dread Demon of the Earthquake, laughing to 
scorn alike the magic of human guile and the malice of human 
wrath. Asa Titan, on whom the mountains are piled, it roused 
itself from the sleep of years ; it moved on its tortured couch: 
the caverns below groaned and trembled beneath the motion of 
its limbs. In the moment of his vengeance and his power the | 
self-prized demigod was humbled to his real clay. Far and 
wide along the soil went a hoarse and rumbling sound: the 
curtains of the chamber shook as at the blast of a storm, the 
altar rocked, the tripod reeled, and, high over the place of con- 
test, the column trembled and waved from side to side, the 
sable head of the goddess tottered and fell from its pedestal; 
and as the Egyptian stooped above his intended victim, right 
upon his bended form, right between the shoulder and the 
neck, struck the marble mass! The shock stretched him like 
the blow of death at once, suddenly, without sound or motion, 
or semblance of life, upon the floor, apparently crushed by the 
very divinity he had impiously animated and invoked! 

“The Earth has preserved her children,” said Glaucus, stag- 
gering to his feet. “Blessed be the dread convulsion! Let 
us worship the providence of the gods!” He assisted Apzecides 
to rise, and then turned upward the face of Arbaces: it seemed 
locked as in death; blood gushed from the Egyptian’s lips over 
his glittering robes; he fell heavily from the arms of Glaucus, 
and the red stream trickled slowly along the marble. Again 
the earth shook beneath their feet; they were forced to cling 
to each other; the convulsion ceased as suddenly as it came ; 
they tarried no longer; Glaucus bore Ione lightly in his arms, 
and they fled from the unhallowed spot. But scarce had they 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 159 


entered the garden than they were met on all sides by flying 
and disordered groups of women and slaves, whose festive and 
glittering garments contrasted in mockery the solemn terror 
of the hour. They did not appear to heed the strangers; they 
were occupied only with their own fears. After the tranquil- 
lity of sixteen years, that burning and treacherous soil again 
menaced destruction; they uttered but one cry, “THE EARTH- 
QUAKE! THE EARTHQUAKE!” and passing unmolested from the 
midst of them, Apzecides and his companions, without entering 
the house, hastened down one of the alleys, passed a small 
open gate, and there, sitting on a little mound over which 
spread the gloom of the dark-green aloes, the moonlight fell 
on the bended figure of the blind girl; she was weeping 
bitterly. 


BOOK IIL 


"AAA, SeAdva, 
Saive addy: tly yap wotaclcouat aovxa, Satuoy, 
TG x0dvia, @ “Exdra, Tay Kad oxvAakes TpouéorTt, 
"Epxouevay vexvay ava 7” jpla, kal wéAay aiua. 
Xaip’, ‘Exdra SacmaAjri, rat és TéAos Sup dmdder, 
Sdpuara Tav Epdoica Xepelova unre Tt Kipxas, 
Mare Tt Mndetas, unre tavOas Mepyuhdas. 

THEOCRITUS. 


Now sacred moon, the mysteries of my song 

To thee and hell-born Hecaté belong, — 

Pale Hecate, who stalks o’er many a tomb, 

And adds fresh horror to sepulchral gloom ; 

Whilst reeking gore distains the paths of death, 

And bloodhounds fly the blasting of her breath. 

Hail, Hecate! and give my rising spell 

Ev’n Perimeda’s sorceries to excel : 

Bid the strong witchery match ev’n Circe’s skill, 

And with Medea’s venom’d fury fill. 
PoLtwuHELeE’s Translation. 


CHAPTER I. 


THE FORUM OF THE POMPEIANS.— THE FIRST RUDE MACHINERY 
BY WHICH THE NEW ERA OF THE WORLD WAS WROUGHT. 


Ir was early noon, and the forum was crowded alike with 
the busy and the idle. As at Paris at this day, so at that time 
in the cities of Italy, men lived almost wholly out of doors: 
the public buildings, the forum, the porticos, the baths, the 
temples themselves might be considered their real homes; it 
was no wonder that they decorated so gorgeously these favorite 
places of resort; they felt for them a sort of domestic affection 
as well as a public pride. And animated was, indeed, the as- 
pect of the forum of Pompeii at that time! Along its broad 
pavement, composed of large flags of marble, were assembled 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 161 


various groups, conversing in that energetic fashion which 
appropriates a gesture to every word, and which is still the 
characteristic of the people of the south. Here, in seven stalls 
on one side the colonnade, sat the money-changers, with their 
glittering heaps before them, and merchants and seamen in 
various costumes crowding round their stalls. On one side, 
several men in long togas ! were seen bustling up to a stately 
edifice, where the magistrates administered justice; these were 
the lawyers, active, chattering, joking, and punning, as you 
may find them at this day in Westminster. In the centre of 
the space pedestals supported various statues, of which the 
most remarkable was the stately form of Cicero. Around the 
court ran a regular and symmetrical colonnade of Doric archi- 
tecture ; and there several, whose business drew them early to 
the place, were taking the slight morning repast which made 
an Italian breakfast, talking vehemently on the earthquake of 
the preceding night as they dipped pieces of bread in their 
cups of diluted wine. In the open space, too, you might per- 
ceive various petty traders exercising the arts of their calling. 
Here one man was holding out ribbons to a fair dame from 
the country; another man was vaunting to a stout farmer the 
excellence of his shoes; a third, a kind of stall-restaurateur, 
still so common in the Italian cities, was supplying many a 
hungry mouth with hot messes from his small and itinerant 
stove, while — contrast strongly typical of the mingled bustle 
and intellect of the time — close by, a schoolmaster was ex- 
pounding to his puzzled pupils the elements of the Latin 
grammar.? <A gallery above the portico, which was ascended 
by small wooden staircases, had also its throng; though, as 
here the immediate business of the place was mainly carried 
on, its groups wore a more quiet and serious air. 

1 For the lawyers and the clients, when attending on their patrons, retained 
the toga after it had fallen into disuse among the rest of the citizens. 

2 In the Museum at Naples is a picture little known, but representing one 
side of the forum at Pompeii as then existing, to which I am much indebted 
in the present description. It may afford a learned consolation to my younger 
readers to know that the ceremony of hoisting (more honored in the breach 
than the observance) is of high antiquity, and seems to have been performed 
with all legitimate and public vigor in the forum of Pompeii. 

vou. 1,—11 


162 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Every now and then the crowd below respectfully gave way 
as some senator swept along to the Temple of Jupiter (which 
filled up one side of the forum, and was the senator’s hall of 
meeting), nodding with ostentatious condescension to such of 
his friends or clients as he distinguished amongst the throng. 
Mingling amidst the gay dresses of the better orders you saw 
the hardy forms of the neighboring farmers, as they made 
their way to the public granaries. Hard by the temple you 
caught a view of the triumphal arch, and the long street be- 
yond swarming with inhabitants; in one of the niches of the 
arch a fountain played, cheerily sparkling in the sunbeams ; 
and above its cornice rose the bronzed and equestrian statue 
of Caligula, strongly contrasting the gay summer skies. Be- 
hind the stalls of the money-changers was that building now 
called the Pantheon; and a crowd of the poorer Pompeians 
passed through the small vestibule which admitted to the in- 
terior, with panniers under their arms, pressing on towards 
a platform, placed between two columns, where such pro- 
visions as the priests had rescued from sacrifice were exposed 
for sale. 

At one of the public edifices appropriated to the business of 
the city, workmen were employed upon the columns, and you 
heard the noise of their labor every now and then rising above 
the hum of the multitude: the columns are unfinished to this 
day ! 

All, then, united, nothing could exceed in variety the cos- 
tumes, the ranks, the manners, the occupations of the crowd; 
nothing could exceed the bustle, the gayety, the animation, 
the flow and flush of life all around. ‘You saw there all the 
myriad signs of a heated and feverish civilization, where pleas- 
ure and commerce, idleness and labor, avarice and ambition, 
mingled in one gulf their motley, rushing, yet harmonious 
streams. 

Facing the steps of the Temple of Jupiter, with folded arms, 
and a knit and contemptuous brow, stood a man of about fifty 
years of age. His dress was remarkably plain, — not so much 
from its material, as from the absence of all those ornaments 
which were worn by the Pompeians of every rank, partly from 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 163 


the love of show, partly, also, because they were chiefly 
wrought into those shapes deemed most efficacious in resisting 
the assaults of magic and the influence of the evil eye.1 His 
forehead was high and bald; the few locks that remained at 
the back of the head were concealed by a sort of cowl, which 
made a part of his cloak, to be raised or lowered at pleasure, 
and was now drawn half-way over the head, as a protection 
from the rays of the sun. The color of his garments was 
brown, no popular hue with the Pompeians; all the usual ad- 
mixtures of scarlet or purple seemed carefully excluded. His 
belt, or girdle, contained a small receptacle for ink, which 
hooked on to the girdle, a stilus (or implement of writing), and 
tablets of no ordinary size. What was rather remarkable, the 
cincture held no purse, which was the almost indispensable 
appurtenance of the girdle, even when that purse had the mis- 
fortune to be empty! 

It was not often that the gay and egotistical Pompeians 
busied themselves with observing the countenances and actions 
of their neighbors; but there was that in the lip and eye of 
this bystander so remarkably bitter and disdainful, as he sur- 
veyed the religious procession sweeping up the stairs of the 
temple, that it could not fail to arrest the notice of many. 

“¢ Who is yon cynic ?” asked a merchant of his companion, 
a jeweller. 

“Tt is Olinthus,” replied the jeweller; “‘a reputed Nazarene.” 

The merchant shuddered. “A dread sect!” said he, ina 
whispered and fearful voice. “It is said that when they meet 
at nights they always commence their ceremonies by the mur- 
der of a new-born babe: they profess a community of goods, 
too, the wretches! A community of goods! What would be- 
come of merchants, or jewellers either, if such notions were in 
fashion ? ” 

“That is very true,” said the jeweller; “besides, they wear 
no jewels; they mutter imprecations when they see a serpent ; 
and at Pompeii all our ornaments are serpentine.” 

‘Do but observe,” said a third, who was a fabricant of 
bronze, “ how yon Nazarene scowls at the piety of the sacri- 

1 See note (a) at the end. 


164 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


ficial procession. He is murmuring curses on the temple, be 
sure. Do you know, Celcinus, that this fellow, passing by my 
shop the other day, and seeing me employed on a statue of 
Minerva, told me with a frown that, had it been marble, he 
would have broken it; but the bronze was too strong for him. 
‘Break a goddess!’ said I. ‘A goddess!’ answered the atheist ; 
‘it is a demon, an evil spirit!’ Then he passed on his way 


cursing. Are such things to be borne? What marvel that the - 


earth heaved so fearfully last night, anxious to reject the athe- 
ist from her bosom? An atheist do I say? worse still, a 
scorner of the Fine Arts! Woe to us fabricants of bronze, if 
such fellows as this give the law to society!” 

“ These are the incendiaries that burnt Rome under Nero,” 
groaned the jeweller. 

While such were the friendly remarks provoked by the air 
and faith of the Nazarene, Olinthus himself became sensible 
of the effect he was producing; he turned his eyes round, and 
observed the intent faces of the accumulating throng, whisper- 
ing as they gazed; and surveying them for a moment with an 
expression, first of defiance and afterwards of compassion, he 
gathered his cloak round him and passed on, muttering audi- 
bly, “ Deluded idolaters! did not last night’s convulsion warn 
ye? Alas! how will ye meet the last day ? ” 

The crowd that heard these boding words gave them dif- 
ferent interpretations, according to their different shades of 
ignorance and of fear; all, however, concurred in imagining 
them to convey some awful imprecation. They regarded the 
Christian as the enemy of mankind; the epithets they lavished 
upon him, of which “ Atheist” was the most favored and fre- 
quent, may serve, perhaps, to warn us, believers of that same 
creed now triumphant, how we indulge the persecution of 
opinion Olinthus then underwent, and how we apply to those 
whose notions differ from our own the terms at that day lav- 
ished on the fathers of our faith. 

As Olinthus stalked through the crowd, and gained one of 
the more private places of egress from the forum, he perceived 
gazing upon him a pale and earnest countenance, which he was 
not slow to recognize. 


a 


“THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 165 


Wrapped in a pallium that partially concealed his sacred 
robes, the young Apecides surveyed the disciple of that new 
and mysterious creed, to which at one time he had been half a 
convert. 

“Is he, too, an impostor ? Does this man, so plain and sim- 
ple in life, in garb, in mien, — does he too, like Arbaces, make 
austerity the robe of the sensualist ? Does the veil of Vesta 
hide the vices of the prostitute ? ” 

Olinthus, accustomed to men of all classes, and combining 
with the enthusiasm of his faith a profound experience of his 
kind, guessed, perhaps, by the index of the countenance, some- 
thing of what passed within the breast of the priest. He 
met the survey of Apecides with a steady eye, and a brow of 
serene and open candor. 

“ Peace be with thee!” said he, saluting Apecides. 

“Peace!” echoed the priest, in so hollow a tone that it 
went at once to the heart of the Nazarene. 

“In that wish,” continued Olinthus, “all good things are 
combined: without virtue thou canst not have peace. Like 
the rainbow, Peace rests upon the earth, but its arch is lost in 
heaven. Heaven bathes it in hues of light; it springs up 
amidst tears and clouds; it is a reflection of the Eternal Sun; 
it is an assurance of calm; it is the sign of a great convenant 
between Man and God. Such peace, O young man, is the 
smile of the soul; it is an emanation from the distant orb of 
immortal light. Pracr be with you!” 

“ Alas!” began Apecides, when he caught the gaze of the 
curious loiterers, inquisitive to know what could possibly be 
the theme of conversation between a reputed Nazarene and a 
priest of Isis. He stopped short, and then added in a low 
tone: “We cannot converse here; I will follow thee to the 
banks of the river: there is a walk which at this time is usu- 
ally deserted and solitary.” 

Olinthus bowed assent. He passed through the streets with 
a hasty step, but a quick and observant eye. Every now and 
then he exchanged a significant glance, a slight sign, with some 
passenger, whose garb usually betokened the wearer to belong to 
the humbler classes ; for Christianity was in this the type of all 


166 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


other and less mighty revolutions; the grain of mustard-seed 
was in the hearts of the lowly. Amidst the huts of poverty 
and labor, the vast stream which afterwards poured its broad 
waters beside the cities and palaces of earth took its neglected 
source. 


CHAPTER II. 
THE NOONDAY EXCURSION ON THE CAMPANIAN SEAS. 


“Burt tell me, Glaucus,” said Ione, as they glided down the 
rippling Sarnus in their boat of pleasure, “how camest thou 
with Apecides to my rescue from that bad man?” 

“ Ask Nydia yonder,” answered the Athenian, pointing to 
the blind girl, who sat at a little distance from them, leaning 
pensively over her lyre; “she must have thy thanks, not we. 
It seems that she came to my house, and, finding me from 
home, sought thy brother in his temple; he accompanied her 
to Arbaces; on their way they encountered me, with a com- 
pany of friends, whom thy kind letter had given me a spirit 
cheerful enough to join. Nydia’s quick ear detected my voice; 
a few words sufficed to make me the companion of Apecides. 
I told not my associates why I left them. Could I trust thy 
name to their hght tongues and gossiping opinion? Nydia 
led us to the garden gate, by which we afterwards bore thee; 
we entered, and were about to plunge into the mysteries of 
that evil house, when we heard thy cry in another direction. 
Thou knowest the rest.” 

Ione blushed deeply. She then raised her eyes to those of 
Glaucus, and he felt all the thanks she could not utter. 
“Come hither, my Nydia,” said she tenderly to the Thessalian. 
“Did I not tell thee that thou shouldst be my sister and 
friend? Hast thou not already been more,—my guardian, 
my preserver ?” | 

“Jt is nothing,” answered Nydia, coldly, and without stirring. 

“ Ah, I forgot,” continued lone: “I should come to thee; ” 


’ THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 167 


and she moved along the benches till she reached the place 
where Nydia sat, and flinging her arms caressingly round her, 
covered her cheeks with kisses. 

Nydia was that morning paler than her wont, and her coun- 
tenance grew even more wan and colorless as she submitted to 
the embrace of the beautiful Neapolitan. “But how camest 
thou, Nydia,” whispered Ione, “to surmise so faithfully the 
danger I was exposed to? Didst thou know aught of the 
Egyptian ?” 

“Yes, I knew of his vices.” 

“ And how ?” 

“Noble Ione, I have been a slave to the vicious; those 
whom I served were his minions.” 

“And thou hast entered his house, since thou knewest so 
well that private entrance ?” 

“T have played on my lyre to Arbaces,” answered the Thes- 
salian, with embarrassment. 

«¢ And thou hast escaped the contagion from which thou hast 
saved Ione ?” returned the Neapolitan, in a voice too low for 
the ear of Glaucus. 

“Noble Ione, I have neither beauty nor station; I am a 
child, and a slave, and blind. The despicable are ever safe.” 

It was with a pained and proud and indignant tone that 
Nydia made this humble reply; and Ione felt that she only 
wounded Nydia by pursuing the subject. She remained silent, 
and the bark now floated into the sea. 

“Confess that I was right, Ione,” said Glaucus, “in prevail- 
ing on thee not to waste this beautiful noon in thy chamber; 
confess that I was right.” 

“Thou wert right, Glaucus,” said Nydia, abruptly. 

“The dear child speaks for thee,” returned the Athenian. 
“But permit me to move opposite to thee, or our light boat 
will be overbalanced.” 

So saying, he took his seat exactly opposite to Ione, and 
leaning forward, he fancied that it was her breath, and not the 
winds of summer, that flung fragrance over the sea. 

“™@hou wert to tell me,” said Glaucus, “why for so many 
day: thy door was closed to me ?” 


168 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Oh, think of it no more,” answered Ione, quickly; “I gave 
my ear to what I now know was the malice of slander.” 

“And my slanderer was the Egyptian ? ” 

fone’s silence assented to the question. 

“‘ His motives are sufficiently obvious.” 

“Talk not of him,” said Ione, covering her face with her 
hands, as if to shut out his very thought. 

“Perhaps he may be already by the banks of the slow | 
Styx,” resumed Glaucus; “yet in that case we should prob- 
ably have heard of his death. Thy brother, methinks, hath 
felt the dark influence of his gloomy soul. When we arrived 
last night at thy house he left me abruptly. Will he ever 
vouchsafe to be my friend?” 

“He is consumed with some secret care,” answered Ione, 
tearfully. “Would that we could lure him from himself! 
Let us join in that tender office.” 

“He shall be my brother,” returned the Greek. 

“ How calmly,” said Ione, rousing herself from the gloom into 
which her thoughts of Apecides had plunged her, “ how calmly 
the clouds seem to repose in heaven ; and yet you tell me, for I 
knew it not myself, that the earth shook beneath us last night.” 

“Tt did, and. more violently, they say, than it has done since 
the great convulsion sixteen years ago. The land we live in 
yet nurses mysterious terror; and the reign of Pluto, which 
spreads beneath our burning fields, seems rent with unseen 
commotion. Didst thou not fee] the earth quake, Nydia, 
where thou wert seated last night; and was it not the fear 
that it occasioned thee that made thee weep ?” 

“T felt the soil creep and heave beneath me, like some 
monstrous serpent,” answered Nydia; “but as I saw nothing, 
I did not fear ; I imagined the convulsion to be a spell of the 
Egyptian’s. They say he has power over the elements.” 

“Thou art a Thessalian, my Nydia,” rephed Glaucus, “and 
hast a national right to believe in magic.” 

“Magic !— who doubts it?” answered Nydia, simply : “dost 
thou ? ” 

“ Until last night (when a necromantic prodigy did indeed 
appall me) methinks I was not credulous in any other magic 


. THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 169 


save that of leve!” said Glaucus, in a tremulous voice, and 
fixing his eyes on Ione. 

“Ah!” said Nydia, with a sort of shiver, and she awoke 
mechanically a few pleasing notes from her lyre; the sound 
suited well the tranquillity of the waters and the sunny still- 
ness of the noon. 

“ Play to us, dear Nydia,” said Glaucus, —“ play, and give 
us one of thine old Thessalian songs: whether it be of magic 
or not, as thou wilt; let it, at least, be of love!” 

“Of love!” repeated Nydia, raising her large, wandering 
eyes, that ever thrilled those who saw them with a mingled 
fear and pity; you could never familiarize yourself to their 
aspect: so strange did it seem that those dark wild orbs were 
ignorant of the day, and either so fixed was their deep myste- 
rious gaze, or so restless and perturbed their glance, that you 
felt, when you encountered them, that same vague and chill- 
ing and half-preternatural impression which comes over you 
in the presence of the insane, —of those who, having a life 
outwardly like your own, have a life within life, dissimilar, 
unsearchable, unguessed ! 

«“ Will you that I should sing of love?” said she, fixing 
those eyes upon Glaucus. 

“Yes,” replied he, looking down. 

She moved a little way from the arm of Ione, still cast 
round her, as if that soft embrace embarrassed; and placing 
her light and graceful instrument on her knee, after a short 
prelude she sang the following strain: — 


NYDIA’S LOVE-SONG. 


be 
The Wind and the Beam loved the Rose, 
And the Rose loved one ; 
For who recks the wind where it blows, 
Or loves not the sun ? 


Il. 
None knew whence the humble Wind stole, 
Poor sport of the skies ; 
None dreamt that the Wind had a soul, 
Tn its mournful sighs ! 


170 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


III. 


Oh, happy Beam! how canst thou prove 
That bright love of thine ? 

In thy light is the proof of thy love, 
Thou hast but — to shine! 


IV. 


How its love can the Wind reveal ? 
Unwelcome its sigh ; 

Mute — mute to its Rose let it steal, — 
Its proof is — to die! 


“Thou singest but sadly, sweet girl,” said Glaucus; ‘thy 
youth only feels as yet the dark shadow of Love; far other 
inspiration doth he wake when he himself bursts and brightens 
upon us.” 

“T sing as I was taught,” rephed Nydia, sighing. 

“Thy master was love-crossed then; try thy hand at a gayer 
air. Nay, girl, give the instrument tome.” As Nydia obeyed, 
her hand touched his, and with that slight touch her breast 
heaved, her cheek flushed. Ione and Glaucus, occupied with 
each other, perceived not those signs of strange and prema- 
ture emotions which preyed upon a heart that, nourished by 
imagination, dispensed with hope. 

And now, broad, blue, bright before them spread that hal- 
cyon sea, fair as at this moment, seventeen centuries from 
that date, I behold it rippling on the same divinest shores. 
Clime that yet enervates with a soft and Circean spell, that 
moulds us insensibly, mysteriously, into harmony with thy- 
self, banishing the thought of austerer labor, the voices of 
wild ambition, the contests and the roar of life; filling us with 
gentle and subduing dreams, making necessary to our nature 
that which is its least earthly portion, so that the very air 
inspires us with the yearning and thirst of love. Whoever 
visits thee seems to leave earth and its harsh cares behind ; 
to enter by the Ivory Gate into the Land of Dreams. The 
young and laughing hours of the Present, —the Hours, those 
children of Saturn, which he hungers ever to devour, seem 
snatched from his grasp. The past, the future, are forgotten ; 
we enjoy but the breathing-time. Flower of the world’s 


‘ THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 171 


garden, Fountain of Delight, Italy of Italy, beautiful, benign 
Campania! vain were, indeed, the Titans, if on this spot they 
yet struggled for another heaven! Here, if God meant this 
working-day life for a perpetual holiday, who would not sigh 
to dwell forever, asking nothing, hoping nothing, fearing 
nothing, while thy skies shone over him, while thy seas spar- 
kled at his feet, while thine air brought him sweet messages 
from the violet and the orange, and while the heart, resigned 
to, beating with, but one emotion, could find the lips and the 
eyes, which flatter it (vanity of vanities!) that love can defy 
custom and be eternal? 

It was then in this clime, on those; seas, that the Athenian 
gazed upon a face that might have suited the nymph, the 
spirit of the place: feeding his eyes on the changeful roses of 
that softest cheek, happy beyond the happiness of common 
life, loving, and knowing himself beloved. 

In the tale of human passion, in past ages, there is some- 
thing of interest even in the remoteness of the time. We love 
to feel within us the bond which unites the most distant eras : 
men, nations, customs perish; the affections are immortal ; 
they are the sympathies which unite the ceaseless generations. 
The past lives again, when we look upon its emotions, — it 
lives in our own! That which was, everis! The magician’s 
gift that revives the dead, that animates the dust of forgotten 
graves, is not in the author’s skill, —it is in the heart of the 
reader ! 

Still vainly seeking the eyes of Ione, as, half downcast, half 
averted, they shunned his own, the Athenian, in a low and 
soft voice, thus expressed the feelings inspired by happier 
thoughts than those which had colored the song of Nydia. 


THE SONG OF GLAUCUS. 


I. 


As the bark floateth on o’er the summer-lit sea, 
Floats my heart o’er the deeps of its passion for thee; 
All lost in the space, without terror it glides, 

For bright with thy soul is the face of the tides. 


172 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Now heaving, now hush’d, is that passionate ocean, 
As it catches thy smile or thy sighs ; 

And the twin-stars! that shine on the wanderer’s devotion, 
Its guide and its god — are thine eyes! 


II. 


The bark may go down, should the cloud sweep above, 
For its being is bound to the light of thy love. 
As thy faith and thy smile are its life and its joy, 
So thy frown or thy change are the storms that destroy. 
Ah! sweeter to sink while the sky is serene, 

If time hath a change for thy heart! 
If to live be to weep over what thou hast been, 

Let me die while I know what thou art! 


As the last words of the song trembled over the sea, Ione 
raised her looks; they met those of her lover. Happy Nydia, 
—happy in thy affliction, that thou couldst not see that fas- 
cinated and charmed gaze, that said so much, that made the 
eye the voice of the soul, that promised the impossibility of 
change! 

But though the Thessalian could not detect that gaze, she 
divined its meaning by their silence, by their sighs. She 
pressed her hands tightly across her breast, as if to keep down 
its bitter and jealous thoughts; and then she hastened to 
speak, for that silence was intolerable to her. 

“ After all, O Glaucus,” said she, “there is nothing very 
mirthful in your strain!” 

“Yet I meant it to be so, when I took up thy lyre, pretty 
one. Perhaps happiness will not permit us to be mirthful.” 

“How strange is it,’ said Ione, changing a conversation 
which oppressed her while it charmed, “that for the last 
several days yonder cloud has hung motionless over Vesuvius ! 
Yet not indeed motionless, for sometimes it changes its form ; 
and now methinks it looks like some vast giant, with an arm 
outstretched over the city. Dost thou see the likeness, or is 
it only to my fancy ?” 

“Fair Ione, I see it also. It is astonishingly distinct. The 
giant seems seated on the brow of the mountain: the different 


1 Tn allusion to the Dioscuri, or twin-stars, the guardian deity of the 
seamen. 


. THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 173 


shades of the cloud appear to form a white robe that sweeps 
over its vast breast and limbs; it seems to gaze with a steady 
face upon the city below, to point with one hand, as thou 
sayest, over its glittering streets, and to raise the other — dost 
thou note it?— towards the higher heaven. It is like the 
ghost of some huge Titan brooding over the beautiful world 
he lost; sorrowful for the past, yet with something of menace 
for the future.” 

‘Could that mountain have any connection with the last 
night’s earthquake? They say that, ages ago, almost in the 
earliest era of tradition, it gave forth fires as Attna still. 
Perhaps the flames yet lurk and dart beneath.” 

“Tt is possible,” said Glaucus, musingly. 

“Thou sayest thou art slow to believe in magic,” said Nydia, 
suddenly. “I have heard that a potent witch dwells amongst 
the scorched caverns of the mountain, and yon cloud may be 
the dim shadow of the demon she confers with.” 

“Thou art full of the romance of thy native Thessaly,” said 
Glaucus ; “and a strange mixture of sense and all conflicting 
superstitions.” 

“We are ever superstitious in the dark,” replied Nydia. 
“Tell me,” she added, after a slight pause, “tell me, O Glau- 
cus, do all that are beautiful resemble each other? They say 
you are beautiful, and Ione also. Are your faces then the 
same? I fancy not; yet it ought to be so.” 

‘“‘ Fancy no such grievous wrong to Ione,” answered Glaucus, 
laughing. “But we do not, alas! resemble each other, as the 
homely and the beautiful sometimes do. JIone’s hair is dark, 
mine light; [one’s eyes are — what color, Ione ? I cannot see; 
turn them to me. Oh, are they black? No, they are too soft. 
Are they blue? No, they are too deep ; they change with every 
ray of the sun, —I know not their color; but mine, sweet Nydia, 
are gray, and bright only when Ione shines on them! Ione’s 
cheek is —” 

“J do not understand one word of thy description,” inter- 
rupted Nydia, peevishly. “I comprehend only that you do 
not resemble each other, and I am glad of it.” 

“Why, Nydia?” said Ione. 


174 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Nydia colored slightly. “Because,” she replied coldly, “I 
have always imagined you under different forms, and one likes 
to know one is right.” 

“ And what hast thou imagined Glaucus to resemble ? ” asked 
Ione, softly. 

“Music!” replied Nydia, looking down. 

“Thou art right,” thought Ione. 

¢¢ And what likeness hast thou ascribed to Ione ? ” 

“T cannot tell yet,” answered the blind girl; “TI have not 
yet known her long enough to find a shape and sign for my 
guesses.” 

“JT will tell thee, then,” said Glaucus, passionately; “she is 
like the sun that warms, — like the wave that refreshes.” 

“The sun sometimes scorches, and the wave sometimes 
drowns,” answered Nydia. 

“ Take then these roses,” said Glaucus; “let their fragrance 
suggest to thee Ione.” 

“ Alas, the roses will fade!” said the Neapolitan, archly. 

Thus conversing, they wore away the hours; the lovers, 
conscious only of the brightness and smiles of love, the blind 
girl feeling only its darkness, its tortures, — the fierceness of 
jealousy and its woe! 

And now, as they drifted on, Glaucus once more resumed 
the lyre, and woke its strings, with a careless hand, to a strain 
so wildly and gladly beautiful that even Nydia was aroused 
from her reverie, and uttered a cry of admiration. 

“Thou seest, my child,” cried Glaucus, “that I can yet 
redeem the character of love’s music, and that I was wrong 
in saying happiness could not be gay. ‘Listen, Nydia! listen, 
dear Ione! and hear 


THE BIRTH OF LOVE. 


I. 
Like a Star in the seas above, 
Like a Dream to the waves of sleep — 
Up, up, THE INCARNATE LOVE, 
She rose from the charméd deep! 


~ 


1 Suggested by a picture of Venus rising from the sea, taken from Pom- 
peii, and now in the Museum at Naples. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 175 


And over the Cyprian Isle 
The skies shed their silent smile; 
And the Forest’s green heart was rife 
With the stir of the gushing life, — 
The life that had leap’d to birth, 
In the veins of the happy earth! 
Hail! oh, hail! 
The dimmest sea-cave below thee, 
The farthest sky-arch above, 
In their innermost stillness know thee: 
And heave with the Birth of Love! 
Gale! soft Gale! 
Thou comest on thy silver winglets, 
From thy home in the tender west ;1 
Now fanning her golden ringlets, 
Now hush’d on her heaving breast. 
And afar on the murmuring sand, 
The Seasons wait hand in hand 
To welcome thee, Birth Divine, 
To the earth which is henceforth thine. 


II. 


Behold ! how she kneels in the shell, 
. Bright pearl in its floating cell ! 
Behold! how the shell’s rose-hues 
The cheek and the breast of snow. 
And the delicate limbs suffuse 
Like a blush, with a bashful glow. 
Sailing on, slowly sailing 
O’er the wild water ; 
All hail! as the fond light is hailing 
Her daughter, 
All hail! 
We are thine, all thine evermore: 
Not a leaf on the laughing shore, 
Not a wave on the heaving sea, 
Nor a single sigh 
In the boundless sky, 
But is vow’d evermore to thee ! 


1 According to the ancient mythologists, Venus rose from the sea near 
Cyprus, to which island she was wafted by the Zephyrs. The Seasons waited 
to welcome her on the sea-shore. 


176 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPELD. 


Ill. 


And thou, my beloved one — thou, 
As I gaze on thy soft eyes now, 
Methinks from their depths I view 
The Holy Birth born anew; 
Thy lids are the gentle cell 
Where the young Love blushing lies: 
See! she breaks from the mystic shell, 
She comes from thy tender eyes! 
Hail! all hail! 
She comes, as she came from the sea, 
To my soul as it looks on thee; 
She comes, she comes! 
She comes, as she came from the sea, 
To my soul as it looks on thee! 
Hail! all hail! 


CHAPTER III. 
THE CONGREGATION. 


FottowEp by Apezecides, the Nazarene gained the side of 
the Sarnus. That river, which now has shrunk into a petty 
stream, then rushed gayly into the sea, covered with countless 
vessels, and reflecting on its waves the gardens, the vines, the 
palaces, and the temples of Pompeii. From its more noisy 
and frequented banks Olinthus directed his steps to a path 
which ran amidst a shady vista of trees, at the distance of 
a few paces from the river. This walk was in the evening a 
favorite resort of the Pompeians, but during the heat and 
business of the day was seldom visited, save by some groups 
of playful children, some meditative poet, or some disputative 
philosophers. At the side farthest from the river, frequent 
copses of box interspersed the more delicate and evanescent 
foliage, and these were cut into a thousand quaint shapes, 
sometimes into the forms of fauns and satyrs, sometimes into 
the mimicry of Egyptian pyramids, sometimes into the letters 
that composed the name of a popular or eminent citizen. 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 177 


Thus the false taste is equally ancient as the pure; and the 
retired traders of Hackney and Paddington, a century ago, 
were little aware, perhaps, that in their tortured yews and 
sculptured box, they found their models in the most polished 
period of Roman antiquity, in the gardens of Pompeii, and the 
villas of the fastidious Pliny. 

This walk now, as the noonday sun shone perpendicularly 
through the checkered leaves, was entirely deserted; at least, 
no other forms than those of Olinthus and the priest infringed 
upon the solitude. They sat themselves on one of the benches, 
placed at intervals between the trees, and facing the faint 
breeze that came languidly from the river, whose waves danced 
and sparkled before them,—a singular and contrasted pair; 
the believer in the latest, the priest of the most ancient, wor- 
ship of the world. 

“Since thou leftst me so abruptly,” said Olinthus, “hast 
thou been happy? Has thy heart found contentment under 
these priestly robes ? Hast thou, still yearning for the voice 
of God, heard it whisper comfort to thee from the oracles 
of Isis? That sigh, that averted countenance, give me the 
answer my soul predicted.” 

“ Alas!” answered Apecides, sadly, “thou seest before thee 
a wretched and distracted man. From my childhood upward I 
have idolized the dreams of virtue. I have envied the holiness 
of men who, in caves and lonely temples, have been admitted 
to the companionship of beings above the world; my days have 
been consumed with feverish and vague desires, my nights 
with mocking but solemn visions. Seduced by the mystic 
prophecies of an impostor, I have indued these robes: my 
nature (I confess it to thee frankly) —my nature has revolted 
at what I have seen and been doomed to share in. Searching 
after truth, I have become but the minister of falsehoods. On 
the evening in which we last met, I was buoyed by hopes 
created by that same impostor, whom I ought already to have 
better known. I have —no matter, no matter! suffice it, I 
have added perjury and sin to rashness and to sorrow. The 
veil is now rent forever from my eyes; I behold a villain 
where I obeyed a demigod; the earth darkens in my sight; I 

VOL. 1. — 12 


178 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 


am in the deepest abyss of gloom; I know not if there be gods 
above; if we are the things of chance; if beyond the bounded 
and melancholy present there is annihilation or an hereafter: 
tell me, then, thy faith; solve me these doubts, if thou hast 
indeed the power.” 

‘“T do not marvel,” answered the Nazarene, “that thou hast 
thus erred, or that thou art thus sceptic. Eighty years ago 
there was no assurance to man of God, or of a certain and 
definite future beyond the grave. New laws are declared to 
him who has ears; a heaven, a true Olympus, is revealed to 
him who has eyes; heed, then, and listen.” 

And with all the earnestness of a man believing ardently 
himself, and zealous to convert, the Nazarene poured forth to 
Apecides the assurances of Scriptural promise. He spoke 
first of the sufferings and miracles of Christ; he wept as he 
spoke: he turned next to the glories of the Saviour’s ascen- 
sion, —to the clear predictions of Revelation. He described 
that pure and unsensual heaven destined to the virtuous, — 
those fires and torments that were the doom of guilt. 

The doubts which spring up to the mind of later reasoners, 
in the immensity of the sacrifice of God to man, were not such 
as would occur to an early heathen. He had been accustomed 
to believe that the gods had lived upon earth, and taken upon 
themselves the forms of men; had shared in human passions, 
in human labors, and in human misfortunes. What was the 
travail of his own Alemena’s son, whose altars now smoked 
with the incense of countless cities, but a toil for the human 
race? Had not the great Dorian Apollo expiated a mystic 
sin by descending to the grave? Those who were the deities 
of heaven had been the lawgivers or benefactors on earth, and 
gratitude had led to worship. It seemed therefore to the 
heathen a doctrine neither new nor strange that Christ had 
been sent from heaven, that an immortal had indued mortality, 
and tasted the bitterness of death. And the end for which He 
thus toiled and thus suffered,— how far more glorious did it 
seem to Apezcides than that for which the deities of old had 
visited the nether world, and passed through the gates of 
death! Was it not worthy of a God to descend to these dim 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 179 


valleys, in order to clear up the clouds gathered over the dark 
mount beyond; to satisfy the doubts of sages; to convert 
speculation into certainty ; by example to point out the rules 
of life; by revelation to solve the enigma of the grave; and 
to prove that the soul did not yearn in vain when it dreamed 
of an immortality ? In this last was the great argument of 
those lowly men destined to convert the earth. As nothing is 
more flattering to the pride and the hopes of man than the 
belief in a future state, so nothing could be more vague and con- 
fused than the notions of the heathen sages upon that mystic 
subject. Apzecides had already learned that the faith of the 
philosophers was not that of the herd; that if they secretly 
professed a creed in some diviner power, it was not the creed 
which they thought it wise to impart to the community. He 
had already learned that even the priest ridiculed what he 
preached to the people; that the notions of the few and the 
many were never united. But in this new faith it seemed to 
him that philosopher, priest, and people, the expounders of the 
religion and its followers, were alike accordant: they did not 
speculate and debate upon immortality, they spoke of it as a 
thing certain and assured; the magnificence of the promise 
dazzled him; its consolations soothed. For the Christian faith 
made its early converts among sinners; many of its fathers 
and its martyrs were those who had felt the bitterness of vice, 
and who were therefore no longer tempted by its false aspect 
from the paths of an austere and uncompromising virtue. All 
the assurances of this healing faith invited to repentance; 
they were peculiarly adapted to the bruised and sore of spirit ; 
the very remorse which Apecides felt for his late excesses 
made him incline to one who found holiness in that remorse, 
and who whispered of the joy in heaven over one sinner that 
repenteth. 

“Come,” said the Nazarene, as he perceived the effect he 
had produced, “ come to the humble hall in which we meet, — a 
select and a chosen few; listen there to our prayers; note the 
sincerity of our repentant tears; mingle in our simple sacri- 
fice, — not of victims, nor of garlands, but offered by white-robed 
thoughts upon the altar of the heart... The flowers that we 


180 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


lay there are imperishable; they bloom over us when we are - 
no more ; nay, they accompany us beyond the grave, they spring 
up beneath our feet in heaven, they delight us with an eternal 
odor ; for they are of the soul; they partake of its nature : these 
offerings are temptations overcome and sins repented. Come, 
oh, come! lose not another moment ; prepare already for the 
great, the awful journey from darkness to light, from sorrow 
to bliss, from corruption to immortality! This is the day of the 
Lord the Son, a day that we have set apart for our devotions. 
Though we meet usually at night, yet some among us are gath- 
ered together even now. What joy, what triumph, will be with 
us all, if we can bring one stray lamb into the sacred fold!” 
There seemed to Apecides, so naturally pure of heart, some- 
thing ineffably generous and benign in that spirit of conver- 
sion which animated Olinthus, —a spirit that found its own 
bliss in the happiness of others ; that sought in its wide soci- 
ality to make companions for eternity. He was touched, 
softened, and subdued. He was not in that mood which can 
bear to be left alone; curiosity, too, mingled with his purer 
stimulants; he was anxious to see those rites of which so 
many dark and contradictory rumors were afloat. He paused 
a moment, looked over his garb, thought of Arbaces, shud- 
dered with horror, lifted his eyes to the broad brow of the 
Nazarene, intent, anxious, watchful, — but for hzs benefit, for 
his salvation! He drew his cloak round him, so as wholly to 
conceal his robes, and said, ‘Lead on; I follow thee.” 
Olinthus pressed his hand joyfully, and then descending to 
the river side, hailed one of the boats that plied there con- 
stantly ; they entered it; an awning overhead, while it shel- 
tered them from the sun, screened also their persons from 
observation: they rapidly skimmed the wave. From one of 
the boats that passed them floated a soft music, and its prow 
was decorated with flowers; it was gliding towards the sea. 
“So,” said Olinthus, sadly, “unconscious and mirthful in 
their delusions, sail the votaries of luxury into the great ocean 
of storm and shipwreck! We pass them, silent and unnoticed, 
to gain the land.” 
Apecides, lifting his eyes, caught through the aperture in 


. THE LAST DAYS OF POMPET.. 181 


the awning a glimpse of the face of one of the inmates of that 
gay bark: it was the face of Ione. The lovers were embarked 
on the excursion at which we have been made present. The 
priest sighed, and once more sank back upon his seat. They 
reached the shore where, in the suburbs, an alley of small and 
mean houses stretched towards the bank; they dismissed the 
boat, landed, and Olinthus, preceding the priest, threaded the 
labyrinth of lanes, and arrived at last at the closed door of 
a habitation somewhat larger than its neighbors. He knocked 
thrice: the door was opened and closed again, as Apecides 
followed his guide across the threshold. 

They passed a deserted atrium, and gained an inner cham- 
ber of moderate size, which, when the door was closed, re- 
ceived its only light from a small window cut over the door 
itself. But, halting at the threshold of this chamber, and 
knocking at the door, Olinthus said, “ Peace be with you!” 
A voice from within returned, “ Peace with whom?” “The 
Faithful!” answered Olinthus, and the door opened; twelve 
or fourteen persons were sitting in a semicircle, silent, and 
seemingly absorbed in thought, and opposite to a crucifix 
rudely carved in wood. 

They lifted up their eyes when Olinthus entered, without 
speaking; the Nazarene himself, before he accosted them, 
knelt suddenly down, and by his moving lips, and his eyes 
fixed steadfastly on the crucifix, Apeecides saw that he prayed 
inly. This rite performed, Olinthus turned to the congre- 
gation. “Men and brethren,” said he, “start not to behold 
amongst you a priest of Isis: he hath sojourned with the 
blind, but the Spirit hath fallen on him; he desires to see, to 
hear, and to understand.” 

“ Let him,’ said one of the assembly ; and Apsecides beheld 
in the speaker a man still younger than himself, of a counte- 
nance equally worn and pallid, of an eye which equally spoke 
of the restless and fiery operations of a working mind. 

“ Let him,” repeated a second voice; and he who thus spoke 
was in the prime of manhood. His bronzed skin and Asiatic 
features bespoke him a son of Syria: he had been a robber in 
his youth, 


182 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Let him,” said a third voice; and the priest, again turning 
to regard the speaker, saw an old man with a long gray beard 
whom he recognized as a slave to the wealthy Diomed. 

“Let him,” repeated simultaneously the rest, —men who, 
with two exceptions, were evidently of the inferior ranks. In 
these exceptions, Apecides noted an officer of the guard and 
an Alexandrian merchant. 

“We do not,” recommenced Olinthus, “we do not bind you 
to secrecy ; we impose on you no oaths (as some of our weaker 
brethren would do) not to betray us. It is true, indeed, that 
there is no absolute law against us; but the multitude, more 
savage than their rulers, thirst for our lives. So, my friends, 
when Pilate would have hesitated, it was the people who 
shouted, ‘Christ to the Cross!’ But we bind you not to our 
safety —no! Betray us to the crowd! impeach, calumniate, 
malign us if you will! we are above death; we should walk 
cheerfully to the den of the lion or the rack of the torturer; 
we can. trample down the darkness of the grave, and what is 
death to a criminal is eternity to the Christian.” 

A low and applauding murmur ran through the assembly. 

.“Thou comest amongst us as an examiner, mayest thou 
remain a convert! Our religion? You behold it, —yon cross 
our sole image, yon scroll the mysteries of our Cere and Eleu- 
sis! Our morality ? Itis in our lives! Sinners we all have 
been; who now can accuse us of acrime? We have baptized 
ourselves from the past. Think not that this is of us, it is of 
God. Approach, Medon,” beckoning to the old slave who had 
spoken third for the admission of Apecides, “thou art the 
sole man amongst us who is not free. But in heaven the 
last shall be first: so with us. Unfold your scroll, read, and 
explain.” 

Useless would it be for us to accompany the lecture of 
. Medon or the comments of the congregation. Familiar now 
are those doctrines, then strange and new. Eighteen centuries 
have left us little to expound upon the lore of Scripture or the 
life of Christ. To us, too, there would seem little congenial in 
the doubts that occurred to a heathen priest, and little learned 
in the answers they received from men uneducated, rude, and 


“THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 183 


simple, possessing only the knowledge that they were greater 
than they seemed. 

There was one thing that greatly touched the Neapolitan. 
When the lecture was concluded, they heard a very gentle 
knock at the door: the password was given, and replied to; 
the door opened, and two young children, the eldest of whom 
might have told its seventh year, entered timidly; they were 
the children of the master of the house, that dark and hardy 
Syrian, whose youth had been spent in pillage and bloodshed. 
The eldest of the congregation (it was that old slave) opened 
to them his arms; they fled to the shelter, they crept to his 
breast, and his hard features smiled as he caressed them. And 
then these bold and fervent men, nursed in vicissitude, beaten 
by the rough winds of hfe,— men of mailed and impervious 
fortitude, ready to affront a world, prepared for torment and 
armed for death, —men who presented all imaginable contrast 
to the weak nerves, the light hearts, the tender fragility of 
childhood, crowded round the infants, smoothing their rugged 
brows and composing their bearded lips to kindly and fostering 
smiles; and then the old man opened the scroll, and he taught 
the infants to repeat after him that beautiful prayer which we 
still dedicate to the Lord and still teach to our children; and 
then he told them in simple phrase, of God’s love to the 
young, and how not a sparrow falls but His eye sees it. This 
lovely custom of infant initiation was long cherished by the 
early Church, in memory of the words which said, “Suffer lit- 
tle children to come unto me, and forbid them not;” and was 
perhaps the origin of the superstitious calumny which ascribed 
to the Nazarenes the crime which the Nazarene, when victo- 
rious, attributed to the Jew; namely, the decoying children to 
hideous rites, at which they were secretly immolated. 

And the stern paternal penitent seemed to feel in the inno- 
cence of his children a return into early life, —life ere yet it 
sinned: he followed the motion of their young lips with an 
earnest gaze; he smiled as they repeated, with hushed and 
reverent looks, the holy words; and when the lesson was done, 
and they ran, released, and gladly to his knee, he clasped them 
to his breast, kissed them again and again, and tears flowed 


184 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


fast down his cheek, — tears, of which it would have been im- 
possible to trace the source, so mingled they were with joy 
and sorrow, penitence and hate, — remorse for himself and iove 
for them! 

Something, I say, there was in this scene which peculiarly 
affected Apzecides; and, in truth, it is difficult to conceive a 
ceremony more appropriate to the religion of benevolence, 
more appealing to the household and every-day affections, 
striking a more sensitive chord in the human breast. 

It was at this time that an inner door opened gently, and a 
very old man entered the chamber, leaning on a staff. At his 
presence the whole congregation rose; there was an expression 
of deep, affectionate respect upon every countenance; and 
Apeecides, gazing on his countenance, felt attracted towards 
him by an irresistible sympathy. No man ever looked upon 
that face without love; for there had dwelt the smile of the 
Deity, the incarnation of divinest love: and the glory of the 
smile had never passed away. 

“My children, God be with you!” said the old man, stretch- 
ing his arms; and as he spoke the infants ran to his knee. 
He sat down, and they nestled fondly to his bosom. It was 
beautiful to see that mingling of the extremes of life, — the 
rivers gushing from their early source, the majestic stream 
gliding to the ocean of eternity! As the light of declining 
day seems to mingle earth and heaven, making the outline 
of each scarce visible, and blending the harsh mountain-tops 
with the sky, even so did the smile of that benign old age ap- 
pear to hallow the aspect of those around, to blend together 
the strong distinctions of varying years, and to diffuse over 
infancy and manhood the light of that heaven into which it 
must so soon vanish and be lost. 

‘ Father,” said Olinthus, “thou on whose form the miracle 
of the Redeemer worked, thou who wert snatched from the 
grave to become the living witness of His mercy and His 
power, behold! a stranger in our meeting, —a new lamb gath- 
ered to the fold!” } 

“Let me bless him,” said the old man: the throng gave way. 
Apecides approached him as by an instinct: he fell on his 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 185 


knees before him; the old man laid his hand on the priest’s 
head, and blessed him, but not aloud. As his hps moved, his 
eyes were upturned, and tears —those tears that good men 
only shed in the hope of happiness to another — flowed fast 
down his cheeks. 

The children were on either side of the convert; his heart 
was theirs; he had become as one of them, to enter into the 
kingdom of Heaven. 


CHAPTER IV. 
THE STREAM OF LOVE RUNS ON, — WHITHER? 


Days are like years in the love of the young, when no bar, 
no obstacle, is between their hearts; when the sun shines, 
and the course runs smooth; when their love is prosperous and 
confessed. Jone no longer concealed from Glaucus the attach- 
ment she felt for him, and their talk now was only of their 
love. Over the rapture of the present the hopes of the future 
glowed like the heaven above the gardens of spring. They 
went in their trustful thoughts far down the stream of time; 
they laid out the chart of their destiny to come; they suffered 
the light of to-day to suffuse the morrow. In the youth of 
their hearts it seemed as if care, and change, and death were 
as things unknown. Perhaps they loved each other the more 
because the condition of the world left to Glaucus no aim and 
no wish but love; because the distractions common in free 
States to men’s affections existed not for the Athenian; be- 
cause his country wooed him not to the bustle of civil life; 
because ambition furnished no counterpoise to love: and 
therefore over their schemes and their projects love only 
reigned. In the iron age they imagined themselves of the 
golden, doomed only to live and to love. 

To the superficial observer, who interests himself only in 
characters strongly marked and broadly colored, both the lov- 
ers may seem of too slight and commonplace a mould: in the 
delineation of characters purposely subdued, the reader some- 


186 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII.’ 


times imagines that there is a want of character; perhaps, 
indeed, I wrong the real nature of these two lovers by not 
painting more impressively their stronger individualities. 
But in dwelling so much on their bright and birdlike exist- 
ence I am influenced almost insensibly by the forethought of 
the changes that await them, and for which they were so ill- 
prepared. It was this very softness and gayety of life that 
contrasted most strongly the vicissitudes of their coming fate. 
For the oak without fruit or blossom, whose hard and rugged 
heart is fitted for the storm, there is less fear than for the 
delicate branches of the myrtle and the laughing clusters of 
the vine. 

They had now advanced far into August; the next month 
their marriage was fixed, and the threshold of Glaucus was 
already wreathed with garlands; and nightly by the door of » 
Ione he poured forth the rich libations. He existed no longer 
for his gay companions; he was ever with Ione. In the morn- 
ings they beguiled the sun with music: in the evenings they 
forsook the crowded haunts of the gay for excursions on the 
water, or along the fertile and vine-clad plains that lay beneath 
the fatal mount of Vesuvius. The earth shook no more; the 
lively Pompeians forgot even that there had gone forth so ter- 
rible a warning of their approaching doom. Glaucus imagined 
that convulsion, in the vanity of his heathen religion, an es- 
pecial interposition of the gods, less in behalf of his own safety 
than that of Ione. He offered up the sacrifices of gratitude at 
the temples of his faith, and even the altar of Isis was covered 
with his votive garlands; as to the prodigy of the animated 
marble, he blushed at the effect it had produced on him. He 
believed it, indeed, to have been wrought by the magic of man; 
but the result convinced him that it betokened not the anger 
of a goddess. 

Of Arbaces, they heard only that he still lived: stretched on 
the bed of suffering, he recovered slowly from the effect of the 
shock he had sustained; he left the lovers unmolested, but it 
was only to brood over the hour and the method of revenge. 

Alike in their mornings at the house of Ione, and in their 
evening excursions, Nydia was usually their constant, and 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 187 


often their sole companion. They did not guess the secret 
fires which consumed her: the abrupt freedom with which 
she mingled in their conversation, her capricious and often 
her peevish moods found ready indulgence in the recollection 
of the service they owed her, and their compassion for her 
affliction. ‘They felt an interest in her, perhaps the greater 
and more affectionate from the very strangeness and way- 
wardness of her nature, her singular alternations of passion 
and softness, the mixture of ignorance and genius, of delicacy 
and rudeness, of the quick humors of the child and the 
proud calmness of the woman. Although she refused to 
accept of freedom, she was constantly suffered to be free; she 
went where she listed: no curb was put either on her words 
or actions; they felt for one so darkly fated,.and so suscepti- 
ble of every wound, the same pitying and compliant indulgence 
the mother feels for a spoiled and sickly child, dreading to 
impose authority, even where they imagined it for her benefit. 
She availed herself of this license by refusing the companion- 
ship of the slave whom they wished to attend her. With the 
slender staff by which she guided her steps, she went now, as 
in her former unprotected state, along the populous streets ; 
it was almost miraculous to perceive how quickly and how 
dexterously she threaded every crowd, avoiding every danger, 
and could find her benighted way through the most intricate 
windings of the city. But her chief delight was still in visit- 
ing the few feet of ground which made the garden of Glaucus, 
— in tending the flowers that at least repaid her love. Some- 
times she entered the chamber where he sat, and sought a 
conversation, which she nearly always broke off abruptly, for 
conversation with Glaucus only tended to one subject, Jone ; 
and that name from his lips inflicted agony upon her, Often 
she bitterly repented the service she had rendered to Ione; 
often she said inly, “If she had fallen, Glaucus could have 
loved her no longer;” and then dark and fearful thoughts 
crept into her breast. 

She had not experienced fully the trials that were in store 
for her when she had been thus generous. She had never 
before been present when Glaucus and Ione were together; 


188 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL. 


she had never heard that voice so kind to her, so much softer 
to another. The shock that crushed her heart with the tidings 
that Glaucus loved, had at first only saddened and benumbed. 
By degrees jealousy took a wilder and fiercer shape: it par- 
took of hatred; it whispered revenge. As you see the wind 
only agitate the green leaf upon the bough, while the leaf 
which has lain withered and seared on the ground, bruised 
and trampled upon till the sap and lfe are gone, is suddenly . 
whirled aloft, now here, now there, without stay and without 
rest, so the love which visits the happy ana the hopeful 
hath but freshness on its wings: its violence is but sportive. 
But the heart that hath fallen from the green things of life, 
that is without hope, that hath no summer in its fibres, is 
torn and whirled by the same wind that but caresses its breth- 
ren; it hath no bough to cling to; it is dashed from path to 
path, till the winds fall, and it is crushed into the mire 
forever. 

The friendless childhood of Nydia had hardened prema- 
turely her character; perhaps the heated scenes of profligacy 
through which she had passed, seemingly unscathed, had 
ripened her passions, though they had not sullied her purity. 
The orgies of Burbo might only have disgusted, the banquets 
of the Egyptian might only have terrified, at the moment; 
but the winds that pass unheeded over the soil leave seeds 
behind them. As darkness, too, favors the imagination, so, 
perhaps, her very blindness contributed to feed with wild and 
delirious visions the love of the unfortunate girl. The voice 
of Glaucus had been the first that had sounded musically to 
her ear; his kindness made a deep impression upon her 
mind; when he had left Pompeii in the former year, she had 
treasured up in her heart every word he had uttered; and 
when any one told her that this friend and patron of the 
poor flower-girl was the most brilliant and the most graceful 
of the young revellers of Pompeii, she had felt a pleasing 
pride in nursing his recollection. Even the task which she 
imposed upon herself, of tending his flowers, served to keep 
him in her mind; she associated him with all that was most 
charming to her impressions; and when she had refused to 


- THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. . 189 


express what image she fancied Ione to resemble, it was 
partly, perhaps, that whatever was bright and soft in nature 
she had already combined with the thought of Glaucus. If 
any of my readers ever loved at an age which they would now 
smile to remember, an age in which fancy forestalled the 
reason, — let them say whether that love, among all its strange 
and complicated delicacies, was not, above all other and later 
passions, susceptible of jealousy? I seek not here the cause; 
I know that it is commonly the fact. 

When Glaucus returned to Pompeii, Nydia had told another 
year of life; that year, with its sorrows, its loneliness, its 
trials, had greatly developed her mind and heart: and when 
the Athenian drew her unconsciously to his breast, deeming 
her still in soul asin years a child, when he kissed her 
smooth cheek, and wound his arm round her trembling frame, 
Nydia felt suddenly, and as by revelation, that those feelings 
she had long and innocently cherished were of love. Doomed 
to be rescued from tyranny by Glaucus, doomed to take shelter 
under his roof, doomed to breathe, but for so brief a time, the 
same air, and doomed in the first rush of a thousand happy, 
erateful, delicious sentiments of an overflowing heart, to hear 
that he loved another; to be commissioned to that other, the 
messenger, the minister; to feel all at once that utter noth- 
ingness which she was, which she ever must be, but which, till 
then, her young mind had not taught her, —that utter noth- 
ingness to him who was all to her, — what wonder that in her 
wild and passionate soul all the elements jarred discordant ; 
that if love reigned over the whole, it was not the love which 
is born of the more sacred and soft emotions? Sometimes 
she dreaded only lest Glaucus should discover her secret; 
sometimes she felt indignant that it was not suspected; it 
was a sign of contempt; could he imagine that she pre- 
sumed so far? Her feelings to Ione ebbed and flowed with 
every hour: now she loved her because he did ; now she hated 
her for the same cause. There were moments when she could 
have murdered her unconscious mistress ; moments when she 
could have laid down life for her. These fierce and tremu- 
lous alternations of passion were too severe to be borne long. 


190 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Her health gave way, though she felt it not; her cheek paled, 
her step grew feebler, tears came to her eyes more often and 
relieved her less. 

One morning, when she repaired to her usual task in the 
garden of the Athenian, she found Glacus under the columns 
of the peristyle, with a merchant of the town; he was select- 
ing jewels for his destined bride. He had already fitted up 
her apartment; the jewels he bought that day were placed 
also within it; they were never fated to grace the fair 
form of Ione; they may be seen at this day among the dis- 
interred treasures of Pompeii, in the chambers of the studio at 
Naples.? 

“Come hither, Nydia; put down thy vase, and come hither. 
Thou must take this chain from me; stay ; there, I have put it 
on. There, Servilius, does it not become her?” 

‘Wonderfully !” answered the jeweller ; for jewellers were 
well-bred and flattering men, even at that day. “ But when 
these earrings glitter in the ears of the noble Ione, then, 
by Bacchus! you will see whether my art adds anything to 
beauty.” 

“Tone?” repeated Nydia, who had hitherto acknowledged 
by smiles and blushes the gift of Glaucus. 

“Yes,” replied the Athenian, carelessly toying with the 
gems; “TI am choosing a present for Ione, but there are none 
worthy of her.” 

He was startled as he spoke by an abrupt gesture of Nydia; 
she tore the chain violently from her neck, and dashed it on 
the ground. 

“How is this? What, Nydia, dost thou not like the 
bauble? Art thou offended ?” 

“You treat me ever as a slave and as a child,” replied the 
Thessalian, with a breast heaving with ill-suppressed sobs; 
and she turned hastily away to the opposite corner of the 
garden. 

Glaucus did not attempt to follow, or to soothe; he was 
offended : he continued to examine the jewels and to comment 
on their fashion; to object to this and to praise that, and 


1 Several bracelets, chains, and jewels, were found in the house. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 191 


finally to be talked by the merchant into buying all, — the 
safest plan for a lover, and a plan that any one will do right 
to adopt, provided always that he can obtain an Ione! 

When he had completed his purchase and dismissed the 
jeweller, he retired into his chamber, dressed, mounted his 
chariot, and went to Ione. He thought no more of the blind 
girl or her offence; he had forgotten both the one and the 
other. 

He spent the forenoon with his beautiful Neapolitan, re- 
paired thence to the baths, supped (if, as we have said before, 
we can justly so translate the three o’clock cena of the Ro- 
mans) alone, and abroad, for Pompeii had its restaurateurs : 
and returning home to change his dress ere he again repaired 
to the house of fone, he passed the peristyle, but with the 
absorbed reverie and absent eyes of a man in love, and did 
not note the form of the poor blind girl, bending exactly in 
the same place where he had left her. But though he saw 
her not, her ear recognized at once the sound of his step. 
She had been counting the moments to his return. He had 
scarcely entered his favorite chamber, which opened on the 
peristyle, and seated himself musingly on his couch, when 
he felt his robe timorously touched, and turning, he beheld 
Nydia kneeling before him, and holding up to him a handful 
of flowers, —a gentle and appropriate peace-offering ; her eyes, 
darkly upheld to his own, streamed with tears. 

‘“‘T have offended thee,” said she, sobbing, “and for the first 
time. I would die rather than cause thee a moment’s pain: say 
that thou wilt forgive me. See! I have taken up the chain; I 
have put it on; I will never part from it: it is thy gift.” 

“My dear Nydia,” returned Glaucus, and raising her, he 
kissed her forehead, “think of it no more! But why, my 
child, wert thou so suddenly angry ? I could not divine the 
cause 7” 

“Do not ask!” said she, coloring violently. “I am a thing 
full of faults and humors; you know I am but a child; you 
say so often: is it from a child that you can expect a reason 
for every folly?” 

“But, prettiest, you will soon be a child no more; and if 


192 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


you would have us treat you as a woman you must learn to 
govern these singular impulses and gales of passion. Think 
not I chide: no, it is for your happiness only I speak.” 

“Ttis true,” said Nydia, “I must learn to govern myself. 
I must hide, I must suppress, my heart. This is a woman’s 
task and duty ; methinks her virtue is hypocrisy.” 

“Self-control is not deceit, my Nydia,” returned the Athe- 
nian; “and that is the virtue necessary alike to man and to 
woman ; it is the true senatorial toga, the badge of the dignity 
it covers.” 

“ Self-control! self-control! Well, well, what you say is 
right! When I listen to you, Glaucus, my wildest thoughts 
grow calm and sweet, and a delicious serenity falls over me. 
Advise, ah, guide me ever, my preserver !” 

“Thy affectionate heart will be thy best guide, Nydia, when 
thou hast learned to regulate its feelings.” 

“ Ah! that will be never,” sighed Nydia, wiping away her 
tears. 

“Say not so: the first effort is the only difficult one.” 

“T have made many first efforts,” answered Nydia, inno- 
cently. “But you, my Mentor, do you find it so easy to con- 
trol yourself ? Can you conceal, can you even regulate your 
love for Ione ? ” 

“Love! dear Nydia: ah! that 1s quite another matter,” 
answered the young preceptor. 

“T thought so,” returned Nydia, with a melancholy smile. 
“ Glaucus, wilt thou take my poor flowers? Do with them as 
thou wilt: thou canst give them to Ione,” added she, with a 
little hesitation. 

“Nay, Nydia,” answered Glaucus, kindly, divining some- 
thing of jealousy in her language, though he imagined it only 
the jealousy of a vain and susceptible child, “I will not give 
thy pretty flowers to any one. Sit here and weave them into 
a garland; I will wear it this night: it is not the first those 
delicate fingers have woven for me.” 

The poor girl deightedly sat down beside Glaucus. She 
drew from her girdle a ball of the many-colored threads, or 
rather slender ribbons, used in the weaving of garlands, and 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 193 


which (for it was her professional occupation) she carried 
constantly with her, and began quickly and gracefully to 
commence her task. Upon her young cheeks the tears were 
already dried; a faint but happy smile played round her lips; 
childlike, indeed, she was sensible only of the joy of the pres- 
ent; she was reconciled to Glaucus; he had forgiven her; she 
was beside him; he played caressingly with her silken hair; 
his breath fanned her cheek ; Ione, the cruel Ione, was not by ; 
none other demanded, divided, his care. Yes, she was happy 
and forgetful; 1t was one of the few moments in her brief 
and troubled life that it was sweet to treasure, to recall. 
As the butterfly, allured by the winter sun, basks for a little 
while in the: sudden light ere yet the wind awakes and the 
frost comes on, which shall blast it before the eve, she rested 
beneath a beam, which, by contrast with the wonted skies, was 
not chilling; and the instinct which should have warned her 
of its briefness, bade her only gladden in its smile. 

“Thou hast beautiful locks,” said Glaucus. “They were 
once, I ween well, a mother’s delight.” 

Nydia sighed; it would seem that she had not been born a 
slave; but she ever shunned the mention of her parentage, 
and, whether obscure or noble, certain it is that her birth was 
never known by her benefactors, nor by any one in those 
distant shores, even to the last. The child of sorrow and 
of mystery, she came and went as some bird that enters 
our chamber for a moment; we see it flutter for a while 
before us: we know not whence it flew or to what region it 
escapes. | 

Nydia sighed, and after a short pause, without answering 
the remark, said, — 

“But do I weave too many roses in my wreath, Glaucus ? 
They tell me it is thy favorite flower.” 

“ And ever favored, my Nydia, be it by those who have the 
soul of poetry: it is the flower of love, of festivals; it is also 
the flower we dedicate to silence and to death; it blooms on 
our brows in life, while hfe be worth the having; it is scat- 
tered above our sepulchre when we are no more.” 

“Ah! would,’ said Nydia, “instead of this perishable 


VOL, 1.— 13 


194 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


wreath, that I could take thy web from the hand of the Fates, 
and insert the roses there!” 

“Pretty one! thy wish is worthy of a voice so attuned to 
song: it is uttered in the spirit of song; and, whatever my 
doom, I thank thee.” 

“ Whatever thy doom! Is it not already destined to all 
things bright and fair? My wish was vain. The Fates will 
be as tender to thee as I should.” 

“Jt might not be so, Nydia, were it not for love! While 
youth lasts, [ may forget my country fora while. But what 
Athenian, in his graver manhood, can think of Athens as she 
was, and be contented that he is happy, while she is fallen, — 
fallen, and forever ? ” 

“ And why forever ? ” 

“ As ashes cannot be rekindled, as love once dead can never 
revive, so freedom departed from a people is never regained. 
But talk we not of these matters unsuited to thee.” 

“To me! oh, thou errest! I, too, have my sighs for Greece ; 
my cradle was rocked at the foot of Olympus; the gods have 
left the mountain, but their traces may be seen, -— seen in the 
hearts of their worshippers, seen in the beauty of their clime; 
they tell me it ¢s beautiful, and Z have felt its airs, to which 
even these are harsh, —its sun, to which these skies are chill. 
Oh, talk to me of Greece! Poor fool that Iam, I can com- 
prehend thee! and methinks, had I yet lingered on those 
shores, had I been a Grecian maid whose happy fate it was to 
love and to be loved, I myself could have armed my lover for 
another Marathon, a new Platzea. Yes, the hand that now 
weaves the roses should have woven thee the olive crown!” 

“Tf such a day could come!” said Glaucus, catching the 
enthusiasm of the blind Thessalian, and half rising. ‘“ But 
no! The sun has set, and the night only bids us be forgetful, 
and in forgetfulness be gay: weave still the roses !” 

But it was with a melancholy tone of forced gayety that the 
Athenian uttered the last words: and sinking into a gloomy 
reverie, he was only wakened from it,a few minutes after- 
wards, by the voice of Nydia, as she sang in a low tone the 
following words, which he had once taught her : — 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 195 
( 


THE APOLOGY FOR PLEASURE. 


Xs 


Who will assume the bays 
That the hero wore ? 
Wreaths on the Tomb of Days 
Gone evermore! 
Who shall disturb the brave, 
Or one leaf on their holy grave ? 
The laurel is vowed to them, 
Leave the bay on its sacred stem! 
But this, the rose, the fading rose, 
Alike for slave and freeman grows. 


il. 


If Memory sit beside the dead 
With tombs her only treasure ; 
If Hope is lost and Freedom fled, 
The more excuse for Pleasure. 
Come, weave the wreath, the roses weave, 
The rose at least is ours: 
To feeble hearts our fathers leave, 
In pitying scorn the flowers! 


III. 


On the summit worn and hoary, 
Of Phyle’s solemn hill, 
The tramp of the brave is still! 
And still in the saddening Mart, 
The pulse of that mighty heart, 
Whose very blood was glory! 
Glaucopis forsakes her own, 
The angry gods forget us; 
But yet, the blue streams along, 
Walk the feet of the silver Song ; 
And the night-bird wakes the moon; 
And the bees in the blushing noon 
Haunt the heart of the old Hymettus. 
Weare fallen, but not forlorn, 
If something is left to cherish ; 
As Love was the earliest born, 
So Love is the last to perish. 


196 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


Iv. 


Wreathe then the roses, wreathe, 
The BEAUTIFUL still is ours; 
While the stream shall flow and the sky shall glow, 
The BEAvTIFUL still is ours! 
Whatever is fair, or soft, or bright, 
In the lap of day or the arms of night, 
Whispers our soul of Greece — of Greece, 
And hushes our care with a voice of peace. 
Wreathe then the roses, wreathe ! 
They tell me of earlier hours ; 
And I hear the heart of my country breathe 
From the lips of the stranger’s flowers. 


CHAPTER V. 


NYDIA ENCOUNTERS JULIA. —INTERVIEW OF THE HEATHEN 
SISTER AND CONVERTED BROTHER. — AN ATHENIAN’S NOTION 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 


“ Wuat happiness to Ione! what bliss to be ever by the side 
of Glaucus, to hear his voice! And she too can see him! ” 

Such was the soliloquy of the blind girl, as she walked 
alone and at twilight to the house of her new mistress, whither 
Glaucus had already preceded her. Suddenly she was inter- 
rupted in her fond thoughts by a female voice. 

“Blind flower-girl, whither goest thou? ‘There is no pan- 
nier under thine arm; hast thou sold all thy flowers ? ” 

The person thus accosting Nydia was a lady of a hand- 
some but a bold and unmaidenly countenance: it was Julia, 
the daughter of Diomed. Her veil was half raised as she 
spoke; she was accompanied by Diomed himself, and by a 
slave carrying a lantern before them: the merchant and his 
daughter were returning home from a supper at one of their 
neighbors’. 

“Dost thou not remember my voice?” continued Julia, 
“T am the daughter of Diomed the wealthy.” 


* THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 197 


“Ah! forgive me; yes, I recall the tones of your voice. 
No, noble Julia, I have no flowers to sell.” 

“T heard that thou wert purchased by the beautiful Greek, 
Glaucus ; is that true, pretty slave ?” asked Julia. 

“T serve the Neapolitan, Ione,’ rephed Nydia, evasively. 

“Ah! and it is true, then —” 

“Come, come!” interrupted Diomed, with his cloak up to 
his mouth, “the night grows cold; I cannot stay here while 
you prate to that blind girl. Come, let her follow you home, 
if you wish to speak to her.” 

“ Do, child,” said Julia, with the air of one not accustomed 
to be refused; “I have much to ask of thee: come.” 

“T cannot this night, it grows late,” answered Nydia. “T 
must be at home; I am not free, noble Julia.” 

“What, the meek Ione will chide thee? Ay, I doubt not 
she is a second Thalestris. But come, then, to-morrow, do. 
Remember, I have been thy friend of old.” 

“T will obey thy wishes,” answered Nydia; and Diomed 
again impatiently summoned his daughter. She was obliged 
to proceed, with the main question she had desired to put to 
Nydia unasked. 

Meanwhile we return to Ione. The interval of time that 
had elapsed that day between the first and second visit of 
Glaucus had not been too gayly spent. She had received a 
visit from her brother. Since the night he had assisted 
in saving her from the Egyptian, she had not before seen 
him. 

Occupied with his own thoughts, —thoughts of so serious 
and intense a nature,—the young priest had thought little 
of his sister; in truth, men perhaps of that fervent order of 
mind which is ever aspiring above earth, are but little prone 
to the earthlier affections; and it had been long since Apecides 
had sought those soft and friendly interchanges of thought, 
those sweet confidences which in his earlier youth had bound 
him to Ione, and which are so natural to that endearing con- 
nection which existed between them. 

Ione, however, had not ceased to regret his estrangement. 
She attributed it at present to the engrossing duties of his 


198 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


severe fraternity. And often, amidst all her bright hopes, 
and her new attachment to her betrothed, — often, when she 
thought of her brother’s brow prematurely furrowed, his un- 
smiling lip and bended frame, — she sighed to think that the 
service of the gods could throw so deep a shadow over that 
earth which the gods created. 

But this day when he visited her there was a strange calm- 
ness on his features, a more quiet and self-possessed expres- 
sion in his sunken eyes, than she had marked for years. This 
apparent improvement was but momentary; it was a false 
calm, which the least breeze could ruffle. 

“‘ May the gods bless thee, my brother!” said she, embracing 
him. 

“The gods! Speak not thus vaguely; perchance there is 
but one God!” 

“‘ My brother !” 

“What if the sublime faith of the Nazarene be true? 
What if God be a monarch, — One, Invisible, Alone? What 
if these numerous, countless deities, whose altars fill the earth, 
be but evil demons, seeking to wean us from the true creed ? 
This may be the case, Ione!” 

“ Alas! can we believe it; or if we believed, would it not 
be a melancholy faith ?” answered the Neapolitan. ‘“ What! 
all this beautiful world made only human, the mountain 
disenchanted of its Oread, the waters of their Nymph, that 
beautiful prodigality of faith which makes everything divine, 
consecrating the meanest flowers, bearing celestial whispers 
in the faintest breeze, — wouldst thou deny this, and make the 
earth mere dust and clay? No, Apecides ; all that is brightest 
in our hearts is that very credulity which peoples the universe 
with gods.” 

Jone answered as a believer in the poesy of the old mythol- 
ogy would answer. We may judge by that reply how obsti- 
nate and hard the contest which Christianity had to endure 
among the heathens. The Graceful Superstition was never 
silent; every, the most household, action of their lives was 
entwined with it; it was a portion of life itself, as the flowers 
are a part of the thyrsus. At every incident they recurred to 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 199 


& 

a god; every cup of wine was prefaced by a libation ; the very 
garlands on their thresholds were dedicated to some divinity; 
their ancestors themselves, made holy, presided as Lares over 
their hearth and hall. So abundant was belief with them, 
that in their own climes at this hour idolatry has never thor- 
oughly been outrooted. It changes but its objects of worship; 
it appeals to innumerable saints where once it resorted to 
divinities; and it pours its crowds, in listening reverence, to 
oracles at the shrines of Saint Januarius or Saint Stephen 
instead of to those of Isis or Apollo. 

But these superstitions were not to the early Christians the 
object of contempt so much as of horror. They did not believe, 
with the quiet scepticism of the heathen philosopher, that 
the gods were inventions of the priests; nor even, with the 
vulgar, that, according to the dim light of history, they had 
been mortals like themselves. They imagined the heathen 
divinities to be evil spirits; they transplanted to Italy and 
to Greece the gloomy demons of India and the East; and in 
Jupiter or in Mars they shuddered at the representative of 
Moloch or of Satan.? 

Apeecides had not yet adopted formally the Christian faith, 
but he was already on the brink of it. He already participated 
the doctrines of Olinthus; he already imagined that the hvely 
imaginations of the heathen were the suggestions of the arch- 
enemy of mankind. The innocent and natural answer of Ione 
made him shudder. He hastened to reply vehemently, and 
yet so confusedly, that Ione feared for his reason more than 
she dreaded his violence. 

“Ah, my brother!” said she, “these hard duties of thine 
have shattered thy very sense! Come to me, Apecides, my 
brother, my own brother; give me thy hand, let me wipe the 

1 In Pompeii a rough sketch of Pluto delineates that fearful deity in the 
shape we at present ascribe to the devil, and decorates him with the parapher- 
nalia of horns and a tail. But in all probability it was from the mysterious 
Pan, the haunter of solitary places, the inspirer of vague and soul-shaking 
terrors, that we took the vulgar notion of the outward likeness of the fiend ; 
it corresponds exactly to the cloven-footed Satan. And in the lewd and profli- 


gate rites of Pan, Christians might well imagine they traced the deceptions 
of the devil. 


200 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


dew from thy brow; chide me not now, I understand thee 
not; think only that Ione could not offend thee!” 

“Tone,” said Apeecides, drawing her towards him, and 
regarding her tenderly, “can I think that this beautiful 
form, this kind heart, may be destined to an eternity of 
torment ?” 

“ Dii meliora/ [the gods forbid !] ” said Ione, in the customary 
form of words by which her contemporaries thought an omen | 
might be averted. 

The words, and still more the superstition they implied, 
wounded the ear of Apzcides. He rose, muttering to himself, 
turned from the chamber, then, stopping half-way, gazed wist- 
fully on Ione and extended his arms. 

Tone flew to them in joy; he kissed her earnestly, and then 
he said, — 

“Farewell, my sister! When we next meet, thou mayst be 
to me as nothing; take thou, then, this embrace, — full yet 
of all the tender reminiscences of childhood, when faith and 
hope, creeds, customs, interests, objects, were the same to us. 
Now the tie is to be broken!” 

With these strange words he left the house. 

The great and severest trial of the primitive Christians was 
indeed this: their conversion separated them from their dear- 
est bonds. They could not associate with beings whose com- 
monest actions, whose commonest forms of speech, were 
impregnated with idolatry. They shuddered at the blessing of 
love; to their ears it was uttered in ademon’s name. This, 
their misfortune, was their strength; if it divided them from 
the rest of the world, it was to unite them proportionally to 
each other. They were men of iron, who wrought forth the 
Word of God, and verily the bonds that bound them were 
of iron also. 

Glaucus found Ione in tears; he had already assumed the 
sweet privilege to console. He drew from her a recital of her 
interview with her brother; but in her confused account of 
language, itself so confused to one not prepared for it, he was 
equally at a loss with Ione to conceive the intentions or the 
meaning of Apecides. 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 201 


‘Hast thou ever heard much,” asked she, “of this new sect 
of the Nazarenes of which my brother spoke ?” 

“T have often heard enough of the votaries,” returned 
Glaucus; “but of their exact tenets know I naught, save that 
in their doctrine there seemeth something preternaturally 
chilling and morose. They live apart from their kind; they 
affect to be shocked even at our simple uses of garlands; they 
have no sympathies with the cheerful amusements of life; 
they utter awful threats of the coming destruction of the 
world; they appear, in one word, to have brought their un- 
smiling and gloomy creed out of the cave of Trophonius. 
Yet,” continued Glaucus, after a slight pause, “they have not 
wanted men of great power and genius, nor converts, even 
among the Areopagites of Athens. Well do I remember to 
have heard my father speak of one strange guest at Athens, 
many years ago; methinks his name was Paun. My father 
was amongst a mighty crowd that gathered on one of our 
immemorial hills to hear this sage of the East expound; 
through the wide throng there rang not a single murmur; the 
jest and the roar, with which our native orators are received, 
were hushed for him; and when, on the loftiest summit of 
that hill, raised above the breathless crowd below, stood this 
mysterious visitor, his mien and his countenance awed every 
heart, even before a sound left his lips. He was a man, I 
have heard my father say, of no tall stature, but of noble and 
impressive mien; his robes were dark and ample; the de. 
clining sun — for it was evening — shone aslant upon his form 
as it rose aloft, motionless and commanding; his countenance 
was much worn and marked, as of one who had braved alike 
misfortune and the sternest vicissitude of many climes; but 
his eyes were bright with an almost unearthly fire; and when 
he raised his arm to speak, it was with the majesty of a man 
into whom the spirit of a god hath rushed. 

“¢Men of Athens,’ he is reported to have said, ‘I find 
amongst ye an altar with this inscription, To Tak UNKNOWN 
Gop. Ye worship in ignorance the same Deity I serve. To 
you unknown till now, to you be it now revealed.’ — 

“Then declared that solemn man how this great Maker of 


coe 


202 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 


all things, who had appointed unto man his several tribes and 
his various homes, the Lord of earth and the universal heaven, 
dwelt not in temples made with hands; that His presence, His 
spirit, were in the air we breathed; our life and our being 
were with Him. ‘Think you,’ he cried, ‘that the Invisible is 
like your statues of gold and marble? Think you that He 
needeth sacrifice from you, — He who made heaven and earth ?’ 
Then spake he of fearful and coming times, of the end of the ~ 
world, of a second rising of the dead, whereof an assurance 
had been given to man in the resurrection of the mighty Being 
whose religion he came to preach. 

“When he thus spoke, the long-pent murmur went forth, 
and the philosophers that were mingled with the people mut- 
tered their sage contempt; there might you have seen the 
chilling frown of the Stoic and the Cynic’s sneer;? and the 
Epicurean, who believeth not even in our own Elysium, mut- 
tered a pleasant jest, and swept laughing through the crowd: 
but the deep heart of the people was touched and thrilled; 
and they trembled, though they knew not why, for verily the 
stranger had the voice and majesty of a man to whom ‘the 
Unknown God’ had committed the preaching of His faith.” 

Tone listened with rapt attention, and the serious and earnest 
manner of the narrator betrayed the impression that he him- 
self had received from one who had been amongst the audience 
that on the hill of the heathen Mars had heard the first tidings 
of the word of Christ! | 


1 “The haughty Cynic scowl’d his grovelling hate, 
And the soft garden’s rose-encircled child — 
Smil’d unbelief, and shudder’d as he smil’d.” 
Pragep: Prize Poem, “ Athens.” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 208 


CHAPTER VI. 
THE PORTER. — THE GIRL.— AND THE GLADIATOR. 


THE door of Diomed’s house stood open, and Medon, the 
old slave, sat at the bottom of the steps by which you as- 
cended to the mansion. That luxurious mansion of the rich 
merchant of Pompeii is still to be seen just without the gates 
of the city, at the commencement of the Street of Tombs; it 
was a gay neighborhood, despite the dead. On the opposite 
side, but at some yards nearer the gate, was a spacious hos- 
telry, at which those brought by business or by pleasure to 
Pompeii often stopped to refresh themselves. In the space 
before the entrance of the inn now stood wagons and carts 
and chariots, some just arrived, some just quitting, in all the 
bustle of an animated and popular resort of public entertain- 
ment. Before the door, some farmers, seated on a bench by 
a small circular table, were talking, over their morning cups, 
on the affairs of their calling. On the side of the door itself 
was painted gayly and freshly the eternal sign of the check- 
erst By the roof of the inn stretched a terrace, on which 
some females, wives of the farmers above mentioned, were, 
some seated, some leaning over the railing, and conversing 
with their friends below. In a deep recess, at a little dis- 
tance, was a covered seat, in which some two or three poorer 
travellers were resting themselves, and shaking the dust from 
their garments. On the other side stretched a wide space, 
originally the burial-ground of a more ancient race than the 
present denizens of Pompeii, and now converted into the 
Ustrinum, or place for the burning of the dead. Above this 
rose the terraces of a gay villa, half hid by trees. The tombs 
themselves, with their graceful and varied shapes, the flowers 
and the foliage that surrounded them, made no melancholy 
feature in the prospect. Hard by the gate of the city, ina 


1 There is another inn within the walls similarly adorned. 


204 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


small niche, stood the still form of the well-disciplined Roman 
sentry, the sun shining brightly on his polished crest, and the 
lance on which he leaned. The gate itself was divided into 
three arches, the centre one for vehicles, the others for the 
foot-passengers ; and on either side rose the massive walls 
which girt the city, composed, patched, repaired at a thousand 
different epochs, according as war, time, or the earthquake 
had shattered that vain protection. At frequent intervals rose 
square towers, whose summits broke in picturesque rudeness 
the regular line of the wall, and contrasted well with the 
modern buildings gleaming whitely by. 

The curving road, which in that direction leads from Pom- 
peli to Herculaneum, wound out of sight amidst hanging vines, 
above which frowned the sullen majesty of Vesuvius. 

“Hast thou heard the news, old Medon?” said a young 
woman, with a pitcher in her hand, as she paused by Diomed’s 
door to gossip a moment with the slave, ere she repaired to 
the neighboring inn to fill the vessel, and coquet with the 
travellers. 

“The news! What news?” said the slave, raising his eyes 
moodily from the ground. 

“Why, there passed through the gate this morning, no doubt 
ere thou wert well awake, such a visitor to Pompeii!” 

“ Ay,” said the slave, indifferently. 

“Yes, a present from the noble Pomponianus.” 

“A present! I thought thou saidst a visitor!” 

“Tt is both visitor and present. Know, O dull and stupid! 
that it is a most beautiful young tiger, for our approaching 
games in the amphitheatre. Hear you that, Medon? Oh, 
what pleasure! I declare J shall not sleep a wink till I see it; 
they say it has such a roar!” 

“Poor fool!” said Medon, sadly and cynically. 

“Fool me no fool, old churl! It is a pretty thing, a tiger, 
especially if we could but find somebody for him to eat. We 
have now a lion and a tiger: only consider that, Medon; and 
for want of two good criminals perhaps we shall be forced to 
see them eat each other. By the bye, your son is a gladiator, 
a handsome man and a strong; can you not persuade him to 


* THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 205 


fight the tiger? Do now; you would oblige me mightily: nay, 
you would be a bénefactor to the whole town.” 

“Vah! vah!” said the slave, with great asperity; “think 
of thine own danger ere thou thus pratest of my poor boy’s 
death.” 

“My own danger!” said the girl, frightened and looking 
hastily round: “avert the omen; let thy words fall on thine 
own head!” And the girl, as she spoke, touched a talisman 
suspended round her neck. “‘Thine own danger!’ What 
danger threatens me ?” 

“Had the earthquake but a few nights since no warning ? ” 
sald Medon. “Has it nota voice? Did it not say to us all, 
‘Prepare for death; the end of all things is at hand’?” 

“Bah, stuff!” said the young woman, settling the folds of 
her tunic. ‘Now thou talkest as they say the Nazarenes talk ; 
methinks thou art one of them. Well, I can prate with thee, 
gray croaker, no more; thou growest worse and worse. Vale/ 
O Hercules, send us a man for the lion, and another for the 
tiger ! 

‘Ho! ho! forthe merry, merry show, 
With a forest of faces in every row! 
Lo, the swordsmen, bold as the son of Alemena, 
Sweep, side by side, o’er the hush’d arena; 
Talk while you may: you will hold your breath 
When they meet in the grasp of the glowing death. 
Tramp, tramp, how gayly they go! 
Ho! ho! for the merry, merry show!’” 


Chanting in a silver and clear voice this feminine ditty, and 
holding up her tunic from the dusty road, the young woman 
stepped lightly across to the crowded hostelry. 

‘¢ My poor son !” said the slave, half aloud, “is it for things 
like this thou art to be butchered? O faith of Christ, I 
could worship thee in all sincerity, were it but for the horror 
which thou inspirest for these bloody lists!” 

The old man’s head sank dejectedly on his breast. He re- 
mained silent and absorbed, but every now and then with the 
corner of his sleeve he wiped his eyes. His heart was with 
his son; he did not see the figure that now approached from 
the gate with a quick step, and a somewhat fierce and reckless 


206 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


gait and carriage. He did not lift his eyes till the figure 
paused opposite the place where he sat, and with a soft voice 
addressed him by the name of — 

“ Father!” 

“My boy! my Lydon! is it indeed thou?” said the old 
man, joyfully. “Ah, thou wert present to my thoughts.” 

“T am. glad to hear it, my father,” said the gladiator, re- 
spectfully touching the knees and beard of the slave; “and 
soon may I be always present with thee, not in thought 
only.” 

“Yes, my son, but not in this world,” replied the slave, 
mournfully. 

“Talk not thus, oh, my sire! look cheerfully, for I feel so: 
Iam sure that I shall win the day; and then, the gold I gain 
buys thy freedom. Oh, my father, it was but a few days 
since that I was taunted, by one, too, whom I would gladly 
have undeceived, for he is more generous than the rest of his 
equals. He is not Roman, he is of Athens; by him I was 
taunted with the lust of gain, when I demanded what sum 
was the prize of victory. Alas! he little knew the soul of 
Lydon !” 

“My boy! my boy!” said the old slave, as, slowly ascend- 
ing the steps, he conducted his son to his‘own little chamber 
communicating with the entrance-hall (which in this villa was 
the peristyle, not the atrium— you may see it now; it is the 
third door to the right on entering. The first door conducts 
to the staircase; the second is but a false recess, in which 
there stood a statue of bronze). “Generous, affectionate, 
pious as are thy motives,” said Medon, when they were thus 
secured from observation, “thy deed itself is guilt: thou art 
to risk thy blood for thy father’s freedom, — that might be for- 
given; but the prize of victory is the blood of another. Oh, 
that is a deadly sin; no object can purify it. Forbear! for- 
bear! rather would I be a slave forever, than purchase liberty 
on such terms!” 

“Hush, my father!” replied Lydon, somewhat impatiently ; 
“thou has picked up in this new creed of thine, of which I 
pray thee not to speak to me, for the gods that gave me 


“THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 207 


strength denied me wisdom, and I understand not one word of 
what thou often preachest to me, — thou hast picked up, I say, 
in this new creed, some singular fantasies of right and wrong. 
Pardon me if I offend thee: but reflect! Against whom shall 
I contend? Oh, couldst thou know those wretches with 
whom for thy sake I assort, thou wouldst think I purified 
earth by removing one of them! Beasts, whose very lips drop 
blood ; things, all savage, unprincipled in their very courage ; 
ferocious, heartless, senseless; no tie of life can bind them}; 
they know not fear, it is true, but neither know they gratitude, 
nor charity, nor love; they are made but for their own career, 
to slaughter without pity, to die without dread! Can thy 
gods, whosoever they ‘be, look with wrath on a conflict with 
such as these, and in such a cause ? Oh, my father, wherever 
the powers above gaze down on earth, they behold no duty so 
sacred, so sanctifying, as the sacrifice offered to an aged parent 
by the piety of a grateful son!” 

The poor old slave, himself deprived of the ights of knowl- 
edge, and only late a convert to the Christian faith, knew not 
with what arguments to enlighten an ignorance at once so 
dark and yet so beautiful in its error. His first impulse was 
to throw himself on his son’s breast, his next to start away, to 
wring his hands; and in the attempt to reprove, his broken 
voice lost itself in weeping. | 

“ And if,” resumed Lydon, — “if thy Deity (methinks thou 
wilt own ‘but one!) be indeed that benevolent and pitying 
Power which thou assertest Him to be, He will know also that 
thy very faith in Him first confirmed me in that determination 
thou blamest.” 

“How! what mean you?” said the slave. 

“Why, thou knowest that I, sold in my childhood as a slave, 
was set free at Rome by the will of my master, whom I had 
been fortunate enough to please. I hastened to Pompeii to 
see thee; I found thee already aged and infirm, under the 
yoke of a capricious and pampered lord; thou hadst lately 
adopted this new faith, and its adoption made thy slavery 
doubly painful to thee; it took away all the softening charm 
of custom, which reconciles us so often to the worst. Didst 


208 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


thou not complain to me that thou wert compelled to offices 
that were not odious to thee as a slave, but guilty as a 
Nazarene? Didst thou not tell me that thy soul shook with 
remorse when thou wert compelled to place even a crumb of 
cake before the Lares that watch over yon impluvium; that 
thy soul was torn by a perpetual struggle? Didst thou not 
tell me that even by pouring wine before the threshold, and 
calling on the name of some Grecian deity, thou didst fear 
thou wert incurring penalties worse than those of Tantalus, 
an eternity of tortures more terrible than those of the Tar- 
tarean fields? Didst thou not tell me this? I wondered, 
I could not comprehend: nor, by Hercules! can I now; but I 
was thy son, and my sole task was to compassionate and re- 
lieve. Could I hear thy groans, could I witness thy myste- 
rious horrors, thy constant anguish, and remain inactive ? 
No! by the immortal gods! the thought struck me like light 
from Olympus! I had no money, but I had strength and 
youth, —these were thy gifts: I could sell these in my turn 
for thee! I learned the amount of thy ransom; I learned 
that the usual prize of a victorious gladiator would doubly 
pay it. I became a gladiator; I linked myself with those 
accursed men, scorning, loathing, while I joined; I acquired 
their skill; blessed be the lesson! it shall teach me to free 
my father!” 

“ Oh, that thou couldst hear Olinthus!” sighed the old man, 
more and more affected by the virtue of his son, but not less 
strongly convinced of the criminality of his purpose. 

“T will hear the whole world talk if thou wilt,” answered 
the gladiator, gayly; “but not till thou art a slave no more. 
Beneath thy own roof, my father, thou shalt puzzle this dull 
brain all day long, ay, and all night too, if it give thee pleas- 
ure. Oh, sucha spot as I have chalked out for thee! It is one 
of the nine hundred and ninety-nine shops of old Julia Felix, 
in the sunny part of the city, where thou mayst bask before the 
door in the day. And I will sell the oil and the wine for thee, 
my father, and then, please Venus (or if it does not please her, 
since thou lovest not her name, it is all one to Lydon), then, 
I say, perhaps thou mayst have a daughter, too, to tend thy 


'THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 209 


gray hairs, and hear shrill voices at thy knee that shall call 
thee ‘ Lydon’s father’! Ah! weshall be so happy: the prize 
can purchase all. Cheer thee! cheer up, my sire! And now 
I must away; day wears; the lanista waits me. Come! thy 
blessing ! ” 

As Lydon thus spoke, he had already quitted the dark 
_chamber of his father; and speaking eagerly, though in a 
whispered tone, they now stood at the same place in which 
we introduced the porter at his post. 

“Oh, bless thee! bless thee, my brave boy!” said Medon, 
fervently; “and may the great Power that reads all hearts 
see the nobleness of thine, and forgive its error!” 

The tall shape of the gladiator passed swiftly down the 
path; the eyes of the slave followed its light but stately 
steps, till the last glimpse was gone; and then, sinking once 
more on his seat, his eyes again fastened themselves on the 
ground: his form, mute and unmoving as a thing of stone; 
his heart—-who in our happier age can even imagine its 
struggles, its commotion ? 

“May I enter?” said a sweet voice. “Is thy mistress Julia 
within ?” | 

The slave mechanically motioned to the visitor to enter, but 
she who addressed him could not see the gesture; she repeated 
her question timidly, but in a louder voice. 

“ Have I not told thee ?” said the slave, peevishly ; “ enter.” 

“Thanks,” said the speaker, plaintively; and the slave, 
roused by the tone, looked up, and recognized the blind flower- 
girl. Sorrow can sympathize with affliction: he raised him- 
self, and guided her steps to the head of the adjacent staircase 
(by which you descended to Julia’s apartment), where, sum- 
moning a female slave, he consigned to her the charge of the 
blind girl. ? 


VoL. 1.—14 


210 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE DRESSING-ROOM OF A POMPEIAN BEAUTY. — IMPORTANT 
CONVERSATION BETWEEN JULIA AND NYDIA, 


Tue elegant Julia sat in her chamber, with her slaves around ° 
her; like the cubiculum which adjoined it, the room was — 
small, but much larger than the usual apartments appro- 
priated to sleep, which were so diminutive that few who have 
not seen the bed-chambers, even in the gayest mansions, can 
form any notion of the petty pigeon-holes in which the citi- 
zens of Pompeii evidently thought it desirable to pass the 
night. But, in fact, “bed” with the ancients was not that 
erave, serious, and lunportant part of domestic mysteries which 
it is with us. The couch itself was more like a very narrow 
and small sofa, light enough to be transported easily, and by 
the occupant himself,’ from place to place; and it was no doubt 
constantly shifted from chamber to chamber, according to the 
caprices of the inmate or the changes of the season; for that 
side of the house which was crowded in one month, might 
perhaps be carefully avoided in the next. There was also 
among the Italians of that period a singular and fastidious 
apprehension of too much daylight; their darkened cham- 
bers, which first appear to us the result of a negligent archi- 
tecture were the effect of the most elaborate study. In their 
porticos and gardens they courted the sun whenever it so 
pleased their luxurious tastes. In the interior of their houses 
they sought rather the coolness and the shade. 

Julia’s apartment at that season was in the lower part of 
the house, immediately beneath the state rooms above, and 
looking upon the garden, with which it was on a level. The 
wide door, which was glazed, alone admitted the morning rays ; 
yet her eye, accustomed to a certain darkness, was sufficiently 
acute to perceive exactly what colors were the most becoming, 
what shade of the delicate rouge gave the brightest beam to 


1 “Take up thy bed and walk ” was (as Sir W. Gell somewhere observes) 
no metaphorical expression. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 211 


her dark glance and the most youthful freshness to her 
cheek. 

On the table, before which she sat, was a small and circular 
mirror of the most polished steel ; round which, in precise order, 
were ranged the cosmetics and the unguents, the perfumes 
and the paints, the jewels and the combs, the ribbons and the 
gold pins, which were destined to add to the natural attrac- 
tions of beauty the assistance of art and the capricious allure- 
ments of fashion. Through the dimness of the room glowed 
brightly the vivid and various colorings of the wall, in all the 
dazzling frescos of Pompeian taste. Before the dressing- 
table, and under the feet of Julia, was spread a carpet, woven 
from the looms of the Hast. Near at hand, on another table, 
was a silver basin and ewer; an extinguished lamp, of most 
exquisite workmanship, in which the artist had represented a 
Cupid reposing under the spreading branches of a myrtle-tree ; 
and a smallroll of papyrus, containing the softest elegies 
of Tibullus. Before the door, which communicated with the 
eubiculum, hung a curtain richly broidered with gold flowers. 
Such was the dressing-room of a beauty eighteen centuries ago. 

The fair Julia leaned indolently back on her seat, while the 
ornatrix (that is, hairdresser) slowly piled, one above the other, 
a mass of small curls, dexterously weaving the false with the 
true, and carrying the whole fabric to a height that seemed 
to place the head rather at the centre than the summit of the 
human form. 

Her tunic, of a deep amber, which well set off her dark hair 
and somewhat embrowned complexion, swept in ample folds 
to her feet, which were cased in shippers, fastened round the 
slender ankle by white thongs; while a profusion of pearls 
were embroidered in the slipper itself, which was of purple, 
and turned slightly upward, as do the Turkish slippers at 
this day. An old slave, skilled by long experience in all the 
arcana of the toilet, stood beside the hairdresser, with the 
broad and studded girdle of her mistress over her arm, and 
giving, from time to time (mingled with judicious flattery to 
the lady herself), instructions to the mason of the ascending 
pile. 


212 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Put that pin rather more to the right; lower, stupid one! 
Do you not observe how even those beautiful eyebrows are ? 
One would think you were dressing Corinna, whose face is all 
of one side. Now put in the flowers; what, fool! not that 
dull pink ; you are not suiting colors to the dim cheek of Chlo- 
ris: it must be the brightest flowers that can alone suit the 
cheek of the young Julia.” 

“Gently!” said the lady, stamping her small foot violently ; - 
“you pull my hair as if you were plucking up a weed!” 

“Dull thing!” continued the directress of the ceremony. 
“Do you not know how delicate is your mistress? You are 
not dressing the coarse horsehair of the widow Fulvia. Now, 
then, the ribbon; that’s right. Fair Julia, look in the mirror; 
saw you ever anything so lovely as yourself ? ” 

When, after innumerable comments, difficulties, and delays, 
the intricate tower was at length completed, the next prepa- 
ration was that of giving to the eyes the soft languish, pro- 
duced by a dark powder apphed to the lids and brows; a 
small patch cut in the form of a crescent, skilfully placed by 
the rosy lips, attracted attention to their dimples, and to the 
teeth, to which already every art had been applied in order to 
heighten the dazzle of their natural whiteness. 

To another slave, hitherto idle, was now consigned the 
charge of arranging the jewels, —the earrings of pearl (two to 
each ear); the massive bracelets of gold; the chain formed of 
rings of the same metal, to which a talisman cut in crystals 
was attached; the graceful buckle on the left shoulder, in 
which was set an exquisite cameo of Psyche; the girdle of 
purple ribbon, richly wrought with threads of gold and 
clasped by interlacing serpents; and lastly, the various rings, 
fitted to every joint of the white and slender fingers. The 
toilet was now arranged according to the last mode of Rome. 
The fair Julia regarded herself with a last gaze of complacent 
vanity, and reclining again upon her seat, she bade the young- 
est of her slaves, in a listless tone, read to her the enamoured 
couplets of Tibullus. This lecture was still proceeding, when 
a female slave admitted Nydia into the presence of the lady 
of the place. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 213 


4 

“ Salve, Julia,” said the flower-girl, arresting her steps within 
a few paces from the spot where Julia sat, and crossing her 
arms upon her breast. “I have obeyed your commands.” 

“ You have done well, flower-girl,” answered the lady. “ Ap- 
proach: you may take a seat.” 

One of the slaves placed a stool by Julia, and Nydia seated 
herself. 

Julia looked hard at the Thessalian for some moments in 
rather an embarrassed silence. She then motioned her at- 
tendants to withdraw, and to close the door. When they 
were alone, she said, looking mechanically from Nydia, and 
forgetful that she was with one who could not observe her 
countenance, — 

“ You serve the Neapolitan, Ione ? ” 

“Tam with her at present,” answered Nydia. 

“Ts she as handsome as they say ? ” 

“T know not,” replied Nydia. “How can Ijudge ?” 

“Ah! I should have remembered. But thou hast ears, if 
not eyes. Do thy fellow-slaves tell thee she is handsome ? 
Slaves talking with one another forget to flatter even their 
mistress.” 

“They tell me that she is beautiful.” 

“Hem! Say they that she is tall?” 

66 Yes,” 

“Why, soamJ. Dark-haired ?” 

“JT have heard so.” 

“SoamI. And doth Glaucus visit her much ?” 

“Daily,” returned Nydia, with a half-suppressed sigh. 

“Daily, indeed! Does he find her handsome ? ” 

“T should think so, since they are so soon to be wedded.” 

“ Wedded!” cried Julia, turning pale even through the 
false roses on her cheek, and starting from her couch. Nydia 
did not, of course, perceive the emotion she had caused. Julia 
remained a long time silent; but her heaving breast and flash- 
ing eyes would have betrayed, to one who could have seen, the 
wound her vanity had sustained. 

“They tell me thou art a Thessalian,” said she, at last 
breaking silence. 


214 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETL. 


“ And truly !” 

“ Thessaly is the land of magic and of witches, of talismans 
and of love-philtres,” said Julia. 

“Tt has ever been celebrated for its sorcerers,” returned 
Nydia, timidly. 

“Knowest thou, then, blind Thessalian, of any love- 
charms ? ” 

“T!” gaid the flower-girl, coloring; “JZ/ how should I?- 
No, assuredly not!” 

“The worse for thee ; I could have given thee gold enough 
to have purchased thy freedom hadst thou been more wise.” 

“ But what,’ asked Nydia, “can induce the beautiful and 
wealthy Julia to ask that question of her servant? Has she 
not money, and youth, and loveliness? Are they not love- 
charms enough to dispense with magic ?” 

“To all but one person in the world,” answered Julia, 
haughtily; “but methinks thy blindness is infectious, and 
—but no matter.” 

“ And that one person ?” said Nydia, eagerly. 

“Ts not Glaucus,” replied Julia, with the customary deceit 
of her sex. “Glaucus—no!” 

Nydia drew her breath more freely, and after a short pause 
Julia recommenced. 

“But talking of Glaucus and his attachment to this Nea- 
politan reminded me of the influence of love-spells, which, for 
aught I know or care, she may have exercised upon him. 
Blind girl, I love, and —shall Julia live to say it ? —am loved 
not in return! This humbles, — nay, not humbdles, but it stings 
my pride. I would see this ingrate at my feet; not in order 
that I might raise, but that I might spurn him. When they 
told me thou wert Thessalian, I imagined thy young mind 
might have learned the dark secrets of thy clime.” 

“ Alas! no,” murmured Nydia; “would it had!” 

“Thanks, at least, for that kindly wish,” said Julia, uncon- 
scious of what was passing in the breast of the flower-girl. 
“But tell me,—thou hearest the gossip of slaves, always 
prone to these dim beliefs, always ready to apply to sorcery 
for their own low loves, — hast thou ever heard of any Eastern 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 215 
é # 
magician in this city, who possesses the art of which thou art 


ignorant ? No vain chiromancer, no juggler of the market- 
place, but some more potent and mighty magician of India or 
of Egypt?” 

“Of Egypt? yes!” said Nydia, shuddering. “ What 
Pompeian has not heard of Arbaces ? ” 

“¢ Arbaces! true,” replied Julia, grasping at the recollection. 
‘They say he is a man above all the petty and false im- 
postures of dull pretenders; that he is versed in the learn- 
ing of the stars, and the secrets of the ancient Nox: why not 
in the mysteries of love?” 

“If there be one magician living whose art is above that of 
others, it is that dread man,” answered Nydia; and she felt 
her talisman while she spoke. 

“He is too wealthy to divine for money !” continued Julia, 
sneeringly. “Can I not visit him ?” 

“Tt is an evil mansion for the young and the beautiful,” 
replied Nydia. “I have heard, too, that he languishes 
in peek a7: 

“ An evil mansion!” said Julia, catching only the first 
sentence. “ Why so?” 

“The orgies of his midnight leisure are impure and polluted ; 
at least, so says rumor.” 

“By Ceres, by Pan, and by Cybele! thou dost but provoke 
my curiosity, instead of exciting my fears,” returned the way- 
ward and pampered Pompeian. “I will seek and question 
him of his lore. If to these orgies love be admitted, — why, 
the more likely that he knows its secrets!” 

Nydia did not answer. | 

“TY will seek him this very day,” resumed Julia; “nay, 
why not this very hour?” 

“At daylight, and in his present state, thou hast assuredly 
the less to fear,” answered Nydia, yielding to her own sudden 
and secret wish to learn if the dark Egyptian were indeed 
possessed of those spells to rivet and attract love, of which 
the Thessalian had so often heard. 

“ And who would dare insult the rich daughter of Diomed ?” 
said Julia, haughtily. “I will go.” 


216 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“May I visit thee afterwards to learn the result ?” asked 
Nydia, anxiously. 

“Kiss me for thy interest in Julia’s honor,” answered the 
lady. ‘Yes, assuredly. This eve we sup abroad; come hither 
at the same hour to-morrow, and thou shalt know all. I may 
have to employ thee too; but enough for the present. Stay ; 
take this bracelet for the new thought thou hast inspired me 
with: remember, if thou servest Julia, she is grateful and she 
is generous.” 

“T cannot take thy present,” said Nydia, putting aside the 
bracelet: “but young as I am, I can sympathize unbought 
with those who love, and love in vain.” 

“ Sayest thou so?” returned Julia. “Thou speakest like a 
free woman, and thou shalt yet be free: farewell! ” 


END OF VOLUME I. 


of pa 


hen 


yours 


Peg: thy 

Pane AGE a ie Kah 
REE ROLES 

SSL MUD EN 


CONTENTS. 


Wook III. (continued). 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Julia seeks Arbaces.— The Result of that Interview . . .« » « « e 1 


CHAPTER IX. 
A Storm in the South.— The Witch’s Cavern . 1... 6 « «© « « rd 


CHAPTER X. 
The Lord of the Burning Belt and his Minion. — Fate writes her 
Prophecy in red Letters, but who shallread them ...... 18 


CHAPTER XI. 


Progress of Events. — The Plot thickens. — The Web is woven, but the 
RRC HAC RE USOT hI ger eighth ge DG 


‘Book IV. 


CHAPTER I, 


Reflections on the Zeal of the early Christians. —Two Men come to a 
perilous Resolve. — Walls have Ears, — particularly Sacred Walls 35 


CHAPTER IL 
A Classic Host, Cook, and Kitchen. — Apacides seeks Ione. — Their 
eT SALLOI NN oily Svc anal CONNER. a ghia Ma anew cota ata nk 3S 


CHAPTER III. 
A Fashionable Party and a Dinner ala Mode in Pompeii . . . . . 50 


CHAPTER IV. 
The Story halts fora Moment at an Episode. . . .....«. 68 


CHAPTER V. 
eee Cre iS Freeh yO) i) stb ie ra cha Stn igi ah alriatihy taeib te ai POD 


vi CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER VI, 


A Reunion of Different Actors. — Streams that flowed apparently apart 
rush into one Gulf eter Se! We he. Se Oe RW OLE Soe ue seater Ry eras 6.) 6) S 6 


CHAPTER VIL 
In which the Reader learns the Condition of Glaucus.— Friendship tested. 
—Enmity softened. — Love the same, — because the one loving is 
‘ blind e eis ° . . ° ° ernie . © ° in eet et ins ve; ° Cie 
CHAPTER VIIL. 


A Classe rineral | 55° eek tenets! %. teeta tale ft idea betas aor ice in ats far ee 


CHAPTER IX, 


In which an Adventure happens to Ione . . . « + « « « » 


CHAPTER X. 

What becomes of Nydia in the House of Arbaces. —— The Egyptian feels 
compassion for Glaucus.— Compassion is often a very useless Visitor 
POMC CU) PG Cath Neneh hers tatalee Mec! ath nah lading 

CHAPTER XI. 


rGtaairerts thei Sorcerces 5) 631s bs le ie) aes jie tee Ue ened eas ene 


CHAPTER XIL 
A Wasp ventures into the Spider’s Web . . . . 6 «© « + 


CHAPTER XIII. 


The Slave consults the Oracle. — They who blind themselves the Blind 
may fool. — Two new Prisoners made in one Night. . . . . . 


CHAPTER XIV. 


miydia accosta Calentia 00/0") 10 ie Leite orale ts eek cee alc en tie 


CHAPTER XV. 


Arbaces and Ione. — Nydia gains the Garden. — Will she escape and 
save the Athenian ? 


CHAPTER XVI. 


The Sorrow of Boon Companions for our Afflictions. -- The Dungeon 
AUTEN LOCTAS AY ee EL ISN) 20s OES SI Tas a me ere eee 


CHAPTER XVIL 


AV change(for Glaus iy iii villa shin i esate Ri ava nee a 


Page 


77 


88 


99 


107 


109 


114 


123 


130 


132 


140 


CONTENTS. vil 


Wook V. 


CHAPTER L 
Page 


The Dream of Arbaces. — A Visitor and a Warning to the Egyptian . 163 


CHAPTER IL 
BEM RT ILRCALEO | o)6 660) Siilay) os wih eile ih) wo) ew et ohh ngite nue gee 


CHAPTER IIL 
Pie anOn IN VOLAS DetlOR ea eis) eal ce lee we 8/0 eval a (Oo 
CHAPTER IV. 


The Amphitheatre once more . « 2 5 « 6 © © «© © © 6 te of IDE 


CHAPTER. V. 


The Cell of the Prisoner and the Den of the Dead — Grief unconscious 
RCM Ugh 0 ie yg sified ie Op Lokal lb ouies iat hie ibaa eee wiha Uti. ( cash Meal OOF 


CHAPTER VI. 


Calenus and Burbo. — Diomed and Clodius, — The Girl of the Amphi- 
BP AIPOM UIE ig iliei la +. .8 (8) ie vaetie) co) 4) 8 ele) el pee he Od 


CHAPTER VIL. 
The Progress of the Destruction . . « 6 6 © « © © «© © © © »& 208 


CHAPTER VII 


Arbaces encounters Glaucus and Ione . .. 4 © «© © © © «6 @ «© 213 


CHAPTER IX, 
The Despair\of the Lovers. — The condition of the Multitude . . . . 216 


CHAPTER X. 
The next Morning, — The Fate of Nydia . 5 « 1 « « «© «© © «© « 221 


CHAPTER THE LAST, 
Wherein all Things cease. we ew tt ee ww tw 228 


Nores ' * oO © t ‘ 2 od e « * e ° 9 a ° . ° « ® o e . 809 


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a ee CUS a 
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Page 

Nydia—From a painting by 
Carl Bodenhausen Frontispiece 
Dancing Nymph : Loy ene: 
Princtpal room in the house of Pansa 74 
The Hortus—House of Pansa OWES 
Ruéns of the Temple of Hercules 172 
House of Marcus Lucretius ari 


Petrified body found in the ruins of ee 226 


ae 


iy yy 
Fi ey 
1 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 


Bron ttl 


( Continued.) 


ooo 


CHAPTER VIII. 


JULIA SEEKS ARBACES. — THE RESULT OF THAT INTERVIEW. 


ARBACES was seated in a chamber which opened on a kind 
of balcony or portico that fronted his garden. His cheek was 
pale and worn with the sufferings he had endured, but his iron 
frame had already recovered from the severest effects of that 
accident which had frustrated his fell designs in the moment 
of victory. ‘The air that came fragrantly to his brow revived 
his languid senses, and the blood circulated more freely than 
it had done for days through his shrunken veins. 

“So, then,” thought he, “the storm of fate has broken and 
blown over; the evil which my lore predicted, threatening 
life itself, has chanced — and yet I live! It came as the stars — 
foretold; and now the long, bright, and prosperous career 
which was to succeed that evil, if I survived it, smiles beyond: 
I have passed, I have subdued the latest danger of my des- 
tiny. NowTI have but to lay out the gardens of my future 
fate, unterrified and secure. First, then, of all my pleasures, 
even before that of love, shall come revenge! This boy Greek, 

VOL. 11.—1 


2 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


who has crossed my passion, thwarted my designs, baffled me 
even when the blade was about to drink his accursed blood, 
shall not a second time escape me! But for the method of my . 
vengeance? Of that let me ponder well! Oh, Até, if thou 
art indeed a goddess, fill me with thy direst inspiration !” 
The Egyptian sank into an intent reverie, which did not seem 
to present to him any clear or satisfactory suggestions. He 
changed his position restlessly, as he revolved scheme after 
scheme, which no sooner occurred than it was dismissed; sev- 
eral times he struck his breast and groaned aloud, with the 
desire of vengeance, and a sense of his impotence to accom- 
plish it. While thus absorbed, a boy-slave timidly entered 
the chamber. 

A female, evidently of rank from her dress, and that of the 
single slave who attended her, waited below, and sought an 
audience with Arbaces. 

“A female!” his heart beat quick. “Is she young?” 

“Her face is concealed by her veil; but her form is slight, 
yet round as that of youth.” 

“ Admit her,” said the Egyptian; for a moment his vain 
heart dreamed the stranger might be Ione. 

The first glance of the visitor now entering the apartment 
sufficed to undeceive so erring a fancy. True, she was about 
the same height as Ione, and perhaps the same age; true, she 
was finely and richly formed: but where was that undulating 
and ineffable grace which accompanied every motion of the 
peerless Neapolitan, —the chaste and decorous garb, so simple 
even in the care of its arrangement, the dignified yet bashful 
step, the majesty of womanhood and its modesty ? 

“Pardon me that I rise with pain,” said Arbaces, gazing on 
the stranger; “I am still suffering from recent illness.” 

“Do not disturb thyself, O great Egyptian!” returned Julia, 
seeking to disguise the fear she already experienced beneath 
the ready resort of flattery; “and forgive an unfortunate 
female, who seeks consolation from thy wisdom.” 

“ Draw near, fair stranger,” said Arbaces, “and speak with- 
out apprehension or reserve.” 

Julia placed herself on a seat beside the Egyptian, and 


- THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 3 


wonderingly gazed around an apartment whose elaborate and 
costly luxuries. shamed even the ornate enrichment of her 
father’s mansion; fearfully, too, she regarded the hieroglyphi- 
cal inscriptions on the walls, the faces of the mysterious images 
which at every corner gazed upon her, the tripod at a little 
distance, and, above all, the grave and remarkable countenance 
of Arbaces himself. A long white robe like a veil half cov- 
ered his raven locks, and flowed to his feet; his face was 
made even more impressive by its present paleness; and 
his dark and penetrating eyes seem: to pierce the shelter of 
her veil, and explore the secrets of her vain and unfeminine 
soul. 

“And what,’ said his low, deep voice, “brings thee, O 
maiden, to the house of the Hastern stranger ?” 

“His fame,” replied Julia. 

“In what?” said he, with a strange and slight smile, 

‘“Canst thou ask, O wise Arbaces? Is not rhe knowledge 
the very gossip theme of Pompeii ?” 

“Some little lore have I, indeed, treasured up,” replied 
Arbaces; “but in what can such serious and sterile secrets 
benefit the ear of beauty ? ” 

“Alas!” said Julia, a little cheered by the accustomed 
accents of adulation, “does not sorrow fly to wisdom for re- 
lief, and they who love unrequitedly, are not they the chosen 
victims of grief?” 

“Ha!” said Arbaces, “can unrequited love be the lot of 
so fair a form, whose modelled proportions are visible even 
beneath the folds of thy graceful robe ? Deign, O maiden, to 
lift thy veil, that I may see at least if the face correspond in 
loveliness with the form.” 

Not unwilling, perhaps, to exhibit her charms, and thinking 
they were likely to interest the magician in her fate, Julia, 
after some slight hesitation, raised her veil, and revealed a 
beauty, which, but for art, had been indeed attractive to the 
fixed gaze of the Egyptian. 

“Thou comest to me for advice in unhappy love,” said he; 
“well, turn that face on the ungrateful one; what other love- 
charm can I give thee ?” 


a THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Oh, cease these courtesies!” said Julia; “it zs a love 
charm, indeed, that I would ask from thy skill.” 

“Fair stranger!” replied Arbaces, somewhat scornfully, 
“love-spells are not among the secrets I have wasted the 
midnight oil to attain.” 

“Ts it indeed so? Then pardon me, great Arbaces, and 
farewell!” 

“Stay,” said Arbaces, who, despite his passion for Ione, was - 
not unmoved by the beauty of his visitor, and had he been in 
the flush of a more assured health, might have attempted to 
console the fair Julia by other means than those of supernat- 
ural wisdom; “stay; although that I confess I have left the 
witchery of philtres and potions to those whose trade is in 
such knowledge, yet am I myself not so dull to beauty but 
that in earlier youth I may have employed them in my own 
behalf. I may give thee advice, at least, if thou wilt be can- 
did with me. Tell me then, first, art thou unmarried, as thy 
dress betokens ? ” 

“Ves,” said Julia. 

“ And, being unblest with fortune, wouldst thou allure some 
wealthy suitor ?” 

“JT am richer than he who disdains me.” 

“Strange and more strange! And thou lovest him who 
loves not thee ?” 

“T know not if I love him,” answered Julia, haughtily ; 
“but I know that I would see myself triumph over a rival; I 
would see him who rejected me my suitor; I would see her 
whom he has preferred in her turn despised.” 

“ A natural ambition and a womanly,” said the Egyptian, 
in a tone too grave for irony. “Yet more, fair maiden; wilt 
thou confide to me the name of thy lover? Can he be Pom- 
peian, and despise wealth, even if blind to beauty ? ” 

“ He is of Athens,” answered Julia, looking down. 

“ Ha!” cried the Egyptian, impetuously, as the blood rushed 
to his cheek; “there is but one Athenian, young and noble, in 
Pompeii. Can it be Glaucus of whom thou speakest !” 

“Ah, betray me not! So indeed they call him.” 

The Egyptian sank back, gazing vacantly on the averted 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 5 


face of the merchant’s daughter, and muttering inly to him- 
self: this conference, with which he had hitherto only trifled, 
amusing himself with the credulity and vanity of his visitor, 
— might it not minister to his revenge ? 

“T see thou canst assist me not,” said Julia, offended by his 
continued silence; “guard at least my secret. Once more, 
farewell!” 

“‘Maiden,” said the Egyptian, in an earnest and serious tone, 
“thy suit hath touched me; I will minister to thy will. Listen 
to me; I have not myself dabbled in these lesser mysteries, 
but I know one who hath. At the base of Vesuvius, less than 
a league from the city, there dwells a powerful witch; beneath 
the rank dews of the new moon, she has gathered the herbs 
which possess the virtue to chain Love in eternal fetters. Her 
art can bring thy lover to thy feet. Seek her, and mention to 
her the name of Arbaces; she fears that name, and will give 
thee her most potent philtres.” 

“ Alas!” answered Julia, “I know not the road to the home 
of her whom thou speakest of; the way, short though it be, 
is long to traverse for a girl who leaves, unknown, the house 
of her father. The country is entangled with wild vines, and 
dangerous with precipitous caverns. I dare not trust to mere 
strangers to guide me; the reputation of women of my rank ig 
easily tarnished ; and though I care not who knows that I love 
Glaucus, I would not have it imagined that I obtained his love 
by a spell.” 

“Were I but three days advanced in health,” said the 
Egyptian, rising and walking (as if to try his strength) across 
the chamber, but with irregular and feeble steps, “I myself 
would accompany thee. Well, thou must wait.” 

“But Glaucus is soon to wed that hated Neapolitan.” 

6c Wed ! 2) 

“Yes; in the early part of next month.” 

‘So soon! Art thou well advised of this ?” 

“From the lips of her own slave.” 

“Tt shall not be!” said the Egyptian, impetuously. “ Fear 
nothing: Glaucus shall be thine. Yet how, when thou ob- 
tainest it, canst thou administer to him this potion ? ” 


6 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“ My father has invited him, and, I believe, the Neapolitan 
also, to a banquet, on the day following to-morrow; I shall 
then have the opportunity to administer it.” 

“So be it!” said the Egyptian, with eyes flashing such 
fierce joy that Julia’s gaze sank trembling beneath them. 
“To-morrow eve, then, order thy litter: thou hast one at thy 
command ? ” 

“Surely — yes,” returned the purse-proud Julia. 

“Order thy litter: at two miles’ distance from the city is 
a house of entertainment, frequented by the wealthier Pom- 
peians, from the excellence of its baths and the beauty of its 
gardens. There canst thou pretend only to shape thy course ; 
there, ill or dying, I will meet thee by the statue of Silenus, in 
the copse that skirts the garden, and I myself will guide thee 
tothe witch. Let us wait till, with the evening star, the goats 
of the herdsmen are gone to rest, when the dark twilight con- 
ceals us, and none shall cross our steps. Go home, and fear 
not. By Hades, swears Arbaces, the sorcerer of Egypt, that 
lone shall never wed with Glaucus!” 

« And that Glaucus shall be mine ?” added Julia, filling up 
the incompleted sentence. 

“Thou hast said it!” replied Appatent and Julia, half 
frightened at this unhallowed appointment, but urged on 
by jealousy and the pique of rivalship, even more than love, 
resolved to fulfil it. 

Left alone, Arbaces burst forth, — 

“Bright stars that never lie, ye already begin the execution 
of your promises, —— success in love, and victory over foes, for 
the rest of my smooth existence. In the very hour when my 
mind could devise no clew to the goal of vengeance, have 
ye sent this fair fool for my guide!” He paused in deep 
thought. “Yes,” said he again, but in a calmer voice, “I 
could not myself have given to her the poison, that shall be 
indeed a philtre! his death might be thus tracked to my door. 
But the witch, ay, there is the fit, the natural agent of my 
designs !” 

He summoned one of his slaves, bade him hasten to track 
the steps of Julia, and acquaint himself with her name and 


* THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 7 


condition. This done, he stepped forth into the portico. The 
skies were serene and clear; but he, deeply read in the signs 
of their various change, beheld in one mass of cloud, far on 
the horizon, which the wind began slowly to agitate, that a 
storm was brooding above. 

“Tt is like my vengeance,” said he, as he gazed; “the sky 
is clear, but the cloud moves on.” 


CHAPTER, LX. 
A STORM IN THE SOUTH. — THE WITCH’S CAVERN. 


It was when the heats of noon died gradually away from 
the earth, that Glaucus and Ione went forth to enjoy the 
cooled and grateful air. At that time various carriages were 
in use among the Romans; the one most used by the richer 
citizens, when they required no companion in their excursions, 
was the biga, already described in the early portion of this 
work; that appropriated to the matrons was termed car- 
pentum,' which had commonly two wheels; the ancients used 
also a sort of litter, a vast sedan-chair, more commodiously 
arranged than the modern, inasmuch as the occupant thereof 
could lie down at ease, instead of being perpendicularly and 
stiffly jostled up and down.? There was another carriage, used 
both for travelling and for excursions in the country; it was 
commodious, containing three or four persons with ease, hav- 
ing a covering which could be raised at pleasure; and, in short, 
answering very much the purpose of (though very different in 
shape from) the modern britska. It was a vehicle of this 
description that the lovers, accompanied by one female slave 
of Ione, now used in their excursion. About ten miles from 
the city there was at that day an old ruin, the remains of a 
temple, evidently Grecian; and as for Glaucus and Ione every- 


1 For public festivals and games they used one more luxurious and costly 
called pilentum, with four wheels. 
2 But they had also the sella, or sedan, in which they sat as we do. 


8 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 


thing Grecian possessed an interest, they had agreed to visit 
these ruins: it was thither they were now bound. 

Their road lay among vines and olive-groves, till, winding 
more and more towards the higher ground of Vesuvius, the 
path grew rugged; the mules moved slowly, and with labor ; 
and at every opening in the wood they beheld those gray and 
horrent caverns indenting the parched rock, which Strabo has 
described, but which the various revolutions of time and the 
volcano have removed from the present aspect of the moun- 
tain. The sun, sloping towards his descent, cast long and deep 
shadows over the mountain; here and there they still heard 
the rustic reed of the shepherd amongst copses of the beech- 
wood and wild oak. Sometimes they marked the form of the 
silk-haired and graceful capella, with its wreathing horn and 
bright gray eye, which, still beneath Ausonian skies, recalls 
the eclogues of Maro, browsing half-way up the hills; and the 
erapes, already purple with the smiles of the deepening sum- 
mer, glowed out from the arched festoons which hung pendent 
from tree to tree. Above them light clouds floated in the 
serene heavens, sweeping so slowly athwart the firmament 
that they scarcely seemed to stir; while on their right they 
caught ever and anon glimpses of the waveless sea, with some 
light bark skimming its surface, and the sunlight breaking 
over the deep in those countless and softest hues so peculiar 
to that delicious sea. 

“How beautiful,” said Glaucus, in a half-whispered tone, 
“is that expression by which we call Earth our Mother! 
With what a kindly equal love she pours her blessings upon 
her children! and even to those sterile spots to which Nature 
has denied beauty, she yet contrives to dispense her smiles: 
witness the arbutus and the vine, which she wreathes over the 
arid and burning soil of yon extinct voleano. Ah! in such an 
hour and scene as this, well might we imagine that the laugh- 
ing face of the Faun should peep forth from those green fes- 
toons; or that we might trace the steps of the Mountain 
Nymph through the thickest mazes of the glade. But the 
Nymphs ceased, beautiful Ione, when ¢how wert created !” 

There is no tongue that flatters like a lover’s; and yet, in 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 9 


the exaggeration of his feelings flattery seems to him com- 
monplace. Strange and prodigal exuberance, which soon ex- 
hausts itself by overflowing! 

They arrived at the ruins; they examined them with that 
fondness with which we trace the hallowed and household 
vestiges of our own ancestry; they lingered there till Hes- 
perus appeared in the rosy heavens; and then returning home- 
ward in the twilight, they were more silent than they had 
been ; for in the shadow and beneath the stars they felt more 
jeu their mutual love. 

It was at this time that the storm which fhe Egyptian had 
predicted began to creep invisibly over them. At first, a low 
and distant thunder gave warning of the approaching conflict of 
the elements, and then rapidly rushed above the dark ranks 
of the serried clouds. The suddenness of storms in that cli- 
mate is something almost preternatural, and might well sug- 
gest to early superstition the notion of a divine agency; a few 
large drops broke heavily among the boughs that half over- 
hung their path, and then, swift and intolerably bright, the 
forked lightning darted across their very eyes, and was swal- 
lowed up by the increasing darkness. 

“Swifter, good Carrucarius!” cried Glaucus to the driver; 
“the tempest comes on apace.” | 

The slave urged on the mules; they went swift over the 
uneven and stony road; the clouds thickened, near and more 
near broke the thunder, and fast rushed the dashing rain. 

“Dost thou fear?” whispered Glaucus, as he sought excuse 
in the storm to come nearer to Ione. 

“ Not with thee,” said she, softly. | 

At that instant the carriage, fragile and ill-contrived (as, 
despite their graceful shapes, were, for practical uses, most of 
such inventions at that time), struck violently into a deep rut 
over which lay a log of fallen wood; the driver, with a curse, 
stimulated his mules yet faster for the obstacle, the wheel was 
torn from the socket, and the carriage suddenly overset. 

Glaucus, quickly extricating himself from the vehicle, has- 
tened to assist Ione, who was fortunately unhurt; with some 
difficulty they raised the carruca (or carriage), and found that 


10 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


it ceased any longer even to afford them shelter; the springs 
that fastened the covering were snapped asunder, and the rain 
poured fast and fiercely into the interior. 

In this dilemma, what was to be done? They were yet some 
distance from the city; no house, no aid, seemed near. 

“There is,” said the slave, “a smith about a mile off; I 
could seek him, and he might fasten at least the wheel to the 
carruca: but, Jupiter! how the rain beats! my mistress will © 
be wet before I come back.” 

“ Run thither at least,” said Glaucus; “we must find the best 
shelter we can till you return.” 

The lane was overshadowed with trees, beneath the amplest 
of which Glaucus drew Ione. He endeavored, by stripping his 
own cloak, to shield her yet more from the rapid rain; but it 
descended with a fury that broke through all puny obstacles ; 
and suddenly, while Glaucus was yet whispering courage to his 
beautiful charge, the lightning struck one of the trees imme- 
diately before them, and split with a mighty crash its huge 
trunk in twain. This awful incident apprized them of the dan- 
ger they braved in their present shelter; and Glaucus looked 
anxiously round for some less perilous place of refuge. ‘We 
are now,” said he, “half-way up the ascent of Vesuvius; there 
ought to be some cavern or hollow in the vine-clad rocks, could 
we but find it, in which the deserting Nymphs have left a 
shelter.” While thus saying, he moved from the trees, and, 
looking wistfully towards the mountain, discovered through 
the advancing gloom a red and tremulous light at no consid- 
erable distance. “That must come,” said he, “from the hearth 
of some shepherd or vine-dresser; it will guide us to some 
hospitable retreat. Wilt thou stay here, while I—yet no; 
that would be to leave thee to danger.” 

“JT will go with you cheerfully,” said Ione. “Open as the 
space seems, it is better than the treacherous shelter of these 
boughs.” 

Half leading, half carrying Ione, Glaucus, accompanied by 
the trembling female slave, advanced towards the light, which 
yet burned red and steadfastly. At length the space was no 
longer open; wild vines entangled their steps, and hid from 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 11 


them, save by imperfect intervals, the guiding beam. But 
faster and fiercer came the rain, and the lightning assumed 
its most deadly and blasting form; they were still, therefore, 
impelled onward, hoping at last, if the light eluded them, to 
arrive at some cottage or some friendly cavern. The vines 
grew more and more intricate; the light was entirely snatched 
from them; but a narrow path, which they trod with labor and 
pain, guided only by the constant and long-lingering flashes of 
the storm, continued to lead them towards its direction. The 
rain ceased suddenly ; precipitous and rough crags of scorched 
lava frowned before them, rendered more fearful by the lhght- 
ning that illumined the dark and dangerous soil. Sometimes 
the blaze lingered over the iron-gray heaps of scoria, covered 
in part with ancient mosses or stunted trees, as if seeking in 
vain for some gentler product of earth more worthy of its ire; 
and sometimes leaving the whole of that part of the scene in 
darkness, the lightning, broad and sheeted, hung redly over 
the ocean, tossing far below, until its waves seemed glow- 
ing into fire; and so intense was the blaze, that it brought 
vividly into view even the sharp outline of the more distant 
windings of the bay, from the eternal Misenum, with its 
lofty brow, to the beautiful Sorentum and the giant hills 
behind. 

Our lovers stopped in perplexity and doubt, when suddenly 
as the darkness that gloomed between the fierce flashes of 
lightning once more wrapped them round, they saw near, but 
high before them, the mysterious light. Another blaze, in 
which heaven and earth were reddened, made visible to them 
the whole expanse: no house was near, but just where they 
had beheld the light, they thought they saw in the recess of 
a cavern the outline of a human form. The darkness once 
more returned; the light, no longer paled beneath the fires of 
heaven, burned forth again: they resolved to ascend towards 
it; they had to wind their way among vast fragments of stone, 
here and there overhung with wild bushes; but they gained 
nearer and nearer to the light, and at length they stood oppo- 
site the mouth of a kind of cavern, apparently formed by huge 
splinters of rock that had fallen transversely athwart each 


12 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


other; and, looking into the gloom, each drew back involun- 
tarily with a superstitious fear and chill. 

A fire burned in a far recess of the cave, and over it was a 
small caldron; on a tall and thin column of iron stood a rude 
lamp; over that part of the wall, at the base of which burned 
the fire, hung in many rows as if to dry, a profusion of herbs 
and weeds. A fox, couched before the fire, gazed upon the 
strangers with its bright and red eye, its hair bristling, and ~ 
a low growl stealing from between its teeth; in the centre 
of the cave was an earthen statue, which had three heads of 
a singular and fantastic cast: they were formed by the real 
skulls of a dog, a horse, and a boar; a low tripod stood before 
this wild representation of the popular Hecate. 

But it was not these appendages and appliances of the cave 
that thrilled the blood of those who gazed fearfully therein, — 
it was the face of its inmate. Before the fire, with the light 
shining full upon her features, sat a woman of considerable 
age. Perhaps in no country are there seen so many hags as 
in Italy, —in no country does beauty so awfully change in age 
to hideousness the most appalling and revolting. But the old 
woman now before them was not one of these specimens of the 
extreme of human ugliness; on the contrary, her countenance 
betrayed the remains of a regular but high and aquiline order 
of feature: with stony eyes turned upon them, with a look 
that met and fascinated theirs, they beheld in that fearful 
countenance the very image of a corpse,— the same, the 
glazed and lustreless regard, the blue and shrunken lips, the 
drawn and hollow jaw, the dead, lank hair of a pale gray, 
the livid, green, ghastly skin, which seemed all surely tinged 
and tainted by the grave! 

“Tt is a dead thing!” said Glaucus. 

“ Nay, it stirs, —it is a ghost or darva,” faltered Ione, as she 
clung to the Athenian’s breast. 

“Oh, away, away!” groaned the slave; “it is the Witch of 
Vesuvius!” 

“Who are ye?” said a hollow and ghostly voice. “And 
what do ye here?” 

The sound, terrible and deathlike as it was, suiting well 


“THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 13 


the countenance of the speaker, and seeming rather the voice 
of some bodiless wanderer of the Styx than living mortal, 
would have made Ione shrink back into the pitiless fury of 
the storm; but Glaucus, though not without some misgiving, 
drew her into the cavern. 

“We are storm-beaten wanderers from the neighboring city,” 
said he, “ and decoyed hither by yon light; we crave shelter 
and the comfort of your hearth.” 

As he spoke, the fox rose from the ground and advanced 
towards the strangers, showing from end to end its white 
teeth, and deepening in its menacing growl. 

“ Down, slave!” said the witch; and at the sound of her 
voice the beast dropped at once, covering its face with its 
brush, and keeping only its quick vigilant eye fixed upon the 
invaders of its repose. ‘Come to the fire if ye will!” said she, 
turning to Glaucus and his companions. “I never welcome 
living thing, save the owl, the fox, the toad, and the viper, so 
I cannot welcome ye; but come to the fire without welcome: 
why stand upon form ?” | 

The language in which the hag addressed them was a strange 
and barbarous Latin, interlarded with many words of some 
more rude and ancient dialect. She did not stir from her seat, 
but gazed stonily upon them as Glaucus now released Ione of 
her outer wrapping garments, and making her place herself on 
a log of wood, which was the only other seat he perceived at 
hand, fanned with his breath the embers into a more glowing 
flame. The slave, encouraged by the boldness of her superiors, 
divested herself also of her long padla, and crept timorously to 
the opposite corner of the hearth. 

“We disturb you, I fear,” said the silver voice of Ione, in 
conciliation. 

The witch did not reply; she seemed like one who has 
awakened for a moment from the dead, and has then relapsed 
once more into the eternal slumber. 

“Tell me,” said she, suddenly, and after a long pause, “ are 
ye brother and sister ?” 

“No,” said Ione, blushing. 

“ Are ye married ?” 


14 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“ Not so,” rephed Glaucus. 

“Ho, lovers! ha! ha! ha!” and the witch laughed so loud 
and so long that the caverns rang again. 

The heart of Ione stood still at that strange mirth. Glaucus 
muttered arapid counterspell to the omen, and the slave turned 
as pale as the cheek of the witch herself. 

“Why dost thou laugh, old crone ?” said Glaucus, somewhat 
sternly, as he concluded his invocation. 

“Did I laugh?” said the hag, absently. ! 

“She is in her dotage,” whispered Glaucus: as he said this, 
he caught the eye of the hag fixed upon him with a malignant 
and vivid glare. 

“Thou hest!” said she, abruptly. 

“Thou art an uncourteous welcomer,” returned Glaucus. 

“TWush! provoke her not, dear Glaucus!” whispered Ione. 

“JT will tell thee why I laughed when I discovered ye were 
lovers,” said the old woman. “It was because it is a pleasure 
to the old and withered to look upon young hearts like yours, 
and to know the time will come when you will loathe each 
other, — loathe — loathe —ha! ha! ha!” 

It was now Ione’s turn to pray against the unpleasing 
prophecy. 

“The gods forbid!” said she. “Yet, poor woman, thou 
knowest lttle of love, or thou wouldst know that it never 
changes.” 

“Was I young once, think ye,” returned the hag, quickly; 
‘and am I old, and hideous, and deathly now? Suchas is the 
form, so is the heart.” With these words she sank again into a 
stillness profound and fearful, as if the cessation of life itself. 

“Hast thou dwelt here long?” said Glaucus, after a pause, 
feeling uncomfortably oppressed beneath a silence so appalling. 

“ Ah, long !— yes.” 

“Tt is but a drear abode.” 

“Ha! thou mayst well say that: Hell is beneath us!” re- 
pled the hag, pointing her bony finger to the earth. “And I 
will tell thee a secret: the dim things below are preparing 
wrath for ye above, —you, the young, and the thoughtless, and 
the beautiful.” 


' THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 15 


“Thou utterest but evil words, ill becoming the hospitable,” 
said Glaucus; “and in future I will brave the tempest rather 
than thy welcome.” 

“Thou wilt do well. None should ever seek me, save the 
wretched !” | 

“And why the wretched ?” asked the Athenian. 

“T am the witch of the mountain,” replied the sorceress, 
with a ghastly grin; “ my trade is to give hope to the hopeless: 
for the crossed in love, I have philtres; for the avaricious, 
promises of treasure; for the malicious, potions of revenge ; 
for the happy and the good, I have only what life has, — 
curses! Trouble me no more.” 

With this the grim tenant of the cave relapsed into a silence 
so obstinate and sullen, that Glaucus in vain endeavored to 
draw her into farther conversation. She did not evince, by 
any alteration of her locked and rigid features, that she even 
heard him. Fortunately, however, the storm, which was brief 
as violent, began now to relax; the rain grew less and less 
fierce ; and at last, as the clouds parted, the moon burst forth 
in the purple opening of heaven, and streamed clear and full 
into that desolate abode. Never had she shone, perhaps, on a 
group more worthy of the painter’s art—-the young, the all- 
beautiful Ione, seated by that rude fire, her lover already for- 
getful of the presence of the hag, at her feet, gazing upward to 
her face, and whispering sweet words; the pale and affrighted 
slave at a little distance, and the ghastly hag resting her deadly 
eyes upon them: yet seemingly serene and fearless (for the 
companionship of love hath such power) were these beautiful 
beings, things of another sphere, in that dark and unholy 
cavern, with its gloomy quaintness of appurtenance. The fox 
regarded them from his corner with his keen and fiery eye: 
and as Glaucus now turned towards the witch, he perceived 
for the first time, just under her seat, the bright gaze and 
crested head of a large snake. Whether it was that the vivid 
coloring of the Athenian’s cloak, thrown over the shoulders of 
Ione, attracted the reptile’s anger, its crest began to glow and 
rise, as if menacing and preparing itself to spring upon the 
Neapolitan; Glaucus caught quickly at one of the half-burned 


16 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


logs upon the hearth, and, as if enraged at the action, the 
snake came forth from its shelter, and with a loud hiss raised 
itself on end till its height nearly approached that of the 
Greek. 

“Witch!” cried Glaucus, “command thy creature, or thou 
wilt see it dead.” 

“Tt has been despoiled of its venom!” said the witch, 
aroused at his threat; but ere the words had left her lip, the 
snake had sprung upon Glaucus; quick and watchful, the 
agile Greek leaped lightly aside, and struck so fell and dex- 
terous a blow on the head of the snake, that it fell prostrate 
and writhing among the embers of the fire. 

The hag sprung up, and stood confronting Glaucus with a 
face which would have befitted the fiercest of the Furies, so 
utterly dire and wrathful was its expression; yet even in hor- 
ror and ghastliness preserving the outline and trace of beauty, 
and utterly free from that coarse grotesque at which the 
imaginations of the North have sought the source of terror. 

“Thou hast,” said she, in a slow and steady voice, which 
belied the expression of her face, so much was it passionless 
and calm, — “thou hast had shelter under my roof, and warmth 
at my hearth; thou hast returned evil for good; thou hast 
smitten and haply slain the thing that loved me and was mine: 
nay, more, the creature, above all others, consecrated to gods 
and deemed venerable by man; now hear thy punishment. 
By the moon, who is the guardian of the sorceress, by Orcus, 
who is the treasurer of wrath, I curse thee, and thou art 
cursed! May thy love be blasted, may thy name be blackened, 
may the infernals mark thee, may thy heart wither and scorch, 
may thy last hour recall to thee the prophet voice of the Saga 
of Vesuvius! And thou—7” she added, turning sharply to-— 
wards Ione, and raising her right arm, when Glaucus burst 
impetuously on her speech. 

“Hag!” cried he, “forbear! Me thou hast cursed, and I 
commit myself to the gods; I defy and scorn thee! but 

1 A peculiar sanctity was attached by the Romans (as, indeed, by perhaps 


every ancient people) to serpents, which they kept tame in their houses, and 
often introduced at their meals. 


“THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 17 


breathe but one word against yon maiden, and I will convert 
the oath on thy foul lips to thy dying groan. Beware!” 

“JT have done,” replied the hag, laughing wildly; “for in 
thy doom is she who loves thee accursed. And not the less, 
that I heard her lips breathe thy name, and know by what 
word to commend thee to the demons. Glaucus, thou art 
doomed!” So saying, the witch turned from the Athenian, 
and kneeling down beside her wounded favorite, which she 
dragged from the hearth, she turned to them her face no 
MOTE! s.<") 

“QO Glaucus!” said Ione, greatly terrified, “what have we 
done? Let us hasten from this place; the storm has ceased. 
Good mistress, forgive him; recall thy words; he meant but to 
defend himself: accept this peace-offering to unsay the said; ” 
and Ione, stooping, placed her purse on the hag’s lap. 

“ Away!” said she, bitterly, —‘“away! The oath once 
woven the Fates only can untie. Away!” 

“Come, dearest!” said Glaucus, impatiently. “Thinkest 
thou that the gods above us or below hear the impotent ravings 
of dotage? Come!” 

Long and loud rang the echoes of the cavern with the dread 
laugh of the Saga. She deigned no further reply. 

The lovers breathed more freely when they gained the open 
air: yet the scene they had witnessed, the words and the 
laughter of the witch, still fearfully dwelt with Ione; and 
even Glaucus could not thoroughly shake off the impression 
they bequeathed. The storm had subsided, save, now and 
then, a low thunder muttered at the distance amidst the 
darker clouds, or a momentary flash of lightning affronted the 
sovereignty of the moon. With some difficulty they regained 
the road, where they found the vehicle already sufficiently 
repaired for their departure, and the carrucarius calling loudly 
upon Hercules to tell him where his charge had vanished. 

Glaucus vainly endeavored to cheer the exhausted spirits of 
Ione, and scarce less vainly to recover the elastic tone of his 
own natural gayety. They soon arrived before the gate of the 
city: as it opened to them, a litter borne by slaves impeded 
the way. 


VOL. I1.—2 


18 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“I+ is too late for egress,” cried the sentinel to the inmate 
of the litter. 

“ Not so,” said a voice, which the lovers started to hear; it 
was a voice they well recognized. “I am bound to the villa 
of Marcus Polybius. I shall return shortly. I am Arbaces 
the Egyptian.” 

The scruples of him of the gate were removed, and the litter 
passed close beside the carriage that bore the lovers. 

“ Arbaces, at this hour!— scarce recovered too, methinks { 
Whither and for what can he leave the city ?” said Glaucus. 

“ Alas!” replied Ione, bursting into tears, ““my soul feels 
still more and more the omen of evil. Preserve us, O ye Gods! 
or at least,” she murmured inly, “ preserve my Glaucus !” 


CHAPTER X. 


THE LORD OF THE BURNING BELT AND HIS MINION. —FATE 
WRITES HER PROPHECY IN RED LETTERS, BUT WHO SHALL 
READ THEM ? 


Arpaces had tarried only till the cessation of the tem- 
pest allowed him, under cover of night, to seek the Saga of 
Vesuvius. 

Borne by those of his trustier slaves in whom in all more 
secret expeditions he was accustomed to confide, he lay ex- 
tended along his litter, and resigning his sanguine heart to 
the contemplation of vengeance gratified and love possessed. 
The slaves in so short a journey moved very little slower than 
the ordinary pace of mules; and Arbaces soon arrived at the 
commencement of a narrow path, which the lovers had not 
been fortunate enough to discover, but which, skirting the 
thick vines, led at once to the habitation of the witch. Here 
he rested the litter; and bidding his slaves conceal themselves 
and the vehicle among the vines from the observation of any 
chance passenger, he mounted alone, with steps still feeble but 
supported by a long staff, the drear and sharp ascent. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 19 


- Not a drop of rain fell from the tranquil heaven; but the 
moisture dripped mournfully from the laden boughs of the 
vine, and now and then collected in tiny pools in the crevices 
and hollows of the rocky way. 

“ Strange passions these for a philosopher,” thought Arbaces, 
“that lead one like me just new from the bed of death, and 
lapped even in health amidst the roses of luxury, across such 
nocturnal paths as this; but Passion and Vengeance treading 
to their goal can make an Elysium of a Tartarus.” High, 
clear, and melancholy shone the moon above the road of that 
dark wayfarer, glassing herself in every pool that lay before 
him, and sleeping in shadow along the sloping mount. He 
saw before him the same light that had guided the steps of 
his intended victims, but, no longer contrasted by the black- 
ened clouds, it shone less redly clear. 

He paused, as at length he approached the mouth of the 
cavern, to recover breath; and then, with his wonted collected 
and stately mien, he crossed the unhallowed threshold. 

The fox sprang up at the ingress of this new-comer, and by 
a long howl announced another visitor to his mistress. 

The witch had resumed her seat, and her aspect of grave- 
like and grim repose. By her feet, upon a bed of dry weeds 
which half covered it, lay the wounded snake; but the quick 
eye oi the Egyptian caught its scales glittering in the reflected 
light of the opposite fire, as it writhed,— now contracting, 
now lengthening, its folds, in pain and unsated anger. 

“Down, slave!” said the witch, as before, to the fox; and, 
as before, the animal dropped to the ground, mute, but vigilant. 

“ Rise, servant of Nox and Erebus!” said Arbaces, com- 
mandingly ; “a stperior in thine art salutes thee! Rise, and 
welcome him.” 

At these words the hag turned her gaze upon the Egyptian’s 
towering form and dark features. She looked long and fix- 
edly upon him, as he stood before her in his Oriental robe, 
and folded arms, and steadfast and haughty brow. ‘ Who art 
thou,” she said at last, “that callest thyself greater in art 
than the Saga of the Burning Fields, and the daughter of the 
perished Etrurian race ?” 


20 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETL. 


“Tam he,’ answered Arbaces, “from whom all cultivators 
of magic, from north to south, from east to west, from the 
Ganges and the Nile to the vales of Thessaly and the shores 
of the yellow Tiber, have stooped to learn.” 

“There is but one such man in these places,” answered the 
witch, “whom the men of the outer world, unknowing his 
loftier attributes and more secret fame, call Arbaces the 
Egyptian; to us of a higher nature and deeper knowledge, 
his rightful appellation is Hermes of the Burning Girdle.” 

“ Look again,” returned Arbaces; “Iam he.” 

As he spoke he drew aside his robe, and revealed a cincture 
seemingly of fire, that burned around his waist, clasped in the 
centre by a plate whereon was engraven some sign apparently 
vague and unintelligible, but which was evidently not unknown 
to the Saga. She rose hastily, and threw herself at the feet of 
Arbaces. ‘I have seen then,” said she, in a voice of deep humil- 
ity, “the Lord of the Mighty Girdle; vouchsafe my homage.” 

“Rise,” said the Egyptian, “ I have need of thee.” 

So saying, he placed himself on the same log of wood on 
which Ione had rested before, and motioned to the witch to 
resume her seat. 

“Thou sayest,” said he, as she obeyed, “that thou art a 
daughter of the ancient Etrurian ! tribes, the mighty walls of 
whose rock-built cities yet frown above the robber race that 
hath seized upon their ancient reign. Partly came those tribes 
from Greece, partly were they exiles from a more burning and 
primeval soil. In either case art thou of Egyptian lineage, 
for the Grecian masters of the aboriginal helot were among 
the restless sons whom the Nile banished from her bosom. 
Equally then, O Saga! thy descent is from ancestors that 
swore allegiance to mine own. By birth as by knowledge, 
art thou the subject of Arbaces. Hear me, then, and obey!” 

The witch bowed her head. 


1 The Etrurians (it may be superfluous to mention) were celebrated for 
their enchantments. Arbaces is wrong in assuming their Egyptian origin, 
but the Egyptians arrogated the ancestry of almost every one of the more 
illustrious races, and there are not wanting modern schoolmen who too 
credulously support the claim. 


‘ THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 21 


“Whatever art we possess in sorcery,” continued Arbaces, 
“we are sometimes driven to natural means to attain our 
object. The ring’ and the crystal,? and the ashes3 and the 
herbs,* do not give unerring divinations; neither do the higher 
mysteries of the moon yield even the possessor of the girdle 
a dispensation from the necessity of employing ever and anon 
human measures for a human object. Mark me, then: thou 
art deeply skilled, methinks, in the secrets of the more deadly 
herbs; thou knowest those which arrest life, which burn and 
scorch the soul from out her citadel, or freeze the channels 
of young blood into that ice which no sun can melt. Do I 
overrate thy skill? Speak, and truly!” , 

- “ Mighty Hermes, such lore is indeed mine own. Deign to 
look at these ghostly and corpse-like features: they have 
waned from the hues of life merely by watching over the rank 
herbs which simmer night and day in yon caldron.” 

The Egyptian moved his seat from so unblessed or so un- 
healthful a vicinity as the witch spoke. 

“Tt is well,” said he; “thou hast learned that maxim of all 
the deeper knowledge which saith, ‘Despise the body to make 
wise the mind.’ But to thy task. There cometh to thee by 
to-morrow’s starlight a vain maiden, seeking of thine art a 
love-charm to fascinate from another the eyes that should utter 
but soft tales to her own; instead of thy philtres, give the 
maiden one of thy most powerful poisons. Let the lover 
breathe his vows to the Shades.” 

The witch trembled from head to foot. 

“Oh, pardon! pardon! dread master,” said she, falteringly, 
“but this I dare not. The law in these cities is sharp and 
vigilant; they will seize, they will slay me.” 

“For what purpose, then, thy herbs and thy potions, vain 
Saga?” said Arbaces, sneeringly. 

The witch hid her loathsome face with her hands. 

“Oh, years ago,” said she, in a voice unlike her usual tones, 
so plaintive was it and so soft, “I was not the thing that I am 
now! I loved, I fancied myself beloved.” 


1 AaxrvAoparreia. 2 KpvotadAoua”rela. 
3 Teppopayteia. 4 Boravopaytela. 


22 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


‘¢ And what connection hath thy love, witch, with my com- 
mands ?” said Arbaces, impetuously. 

“Patience,” resumed the witch; “patience, I implore. I 
loved! Another and less fair than l[—yes, by Nemesis! less 
fair —allured from me my chosen. I was of that dark Etru- 
rian tribe to whom most of all were known the secrets of the 
gloomier magic. My mother was herself a Saga: she shared 
the resentment of her child; from her hands I received the 
potion that was to restore me his love; and from her also the 
poison that was to destroy my rival. Oh, crush me, dread 
walls! my trembling hands mistook the phials, my lover fell 
indeed at my feet; but dead! dead! Since then, what has 
been life tome? I became suddenly old; I devoted myself to 
the soreeries of my race; still by an irresistible impulse I curse 
myself with an awful penance; still I seek the most noxious 
herbs; still I concoct the poisons; still I imagine that I am to 
give them to my hated rival; still I pour them into the phial; 
still I fancy that they shall blast her beauty to the dust; still 
I wake and see the quivering body, the foaming lips, the glaz- 
ing eyes of my Aulus, — murdered, and by me!” 

The skeleton frame of the witch shook beneath strong 
convulsions. | 

Arbaces gazed upon her with a curious though contemptu- 
ous eye. 

“ And this foul thing has yet human emotions!” thought 
he; “she still cowers over the ashes of the same fire that con- 
sumes Arbaces. Such are we all! Mystic is the tie of those 
mortal passions that unite the greatest and the least.” 

He did not reply till she had somewhat recovered herself, 
and now sat rocking to and fro in her seat, with glassy eyes 
fixed on the opposite flame, and large tears rolling down her 
livid cheeks. 

‘A grievous tale is thine, in truth,” said Arbaces. “ But 
these emotions are fit only for our youth: age should harden 
our hearts to all things but ourselves; as every year adds a 
scale to the shell-fish, so should each year wall and incrust the 
heart. Think of those frenzies no more! And now, listen to 
me again. By the revenge that was dear to thee I command 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 23 


thee to obey me! it is for vengeance that I seek thee! This 
youth whom I would sweep from my path has crossed me, 
despite my spells: this thing of purple and broidery, of smiles 
and glances, soulless and mindless, with no charm but that of 
beauty — accursed be it! — this insect, this Glaucus, I tell thee, 
by Oreus and by Nemesis, he must die!” 

And working himself up at every word, the Egyptian, for- 
getful of his debility, of his strange companion, of everything 
but his own vindictive rage, strode, with large and rapid steps, 
the gloomy cavern. 

“Glaucus! saidst thou, mighty master?” said the witch, 
abruptly; and her dim eye glared at the name with all that 
fierce resentment at the memory of small affronts so common 
amongst the solitary and the shunned. 

“ Ay, so he is called; but what matters the name? Let 
it not be heard as that of a living man three days from this 
date!” 

“Hear me,” said the witch, breaking from a short reverie 
into which she was plunged after this last sentence of the 
Egyptian. ‘ Hear me! I am thy thing and thy slave! Spare 
me! If I give to the maiden thou speakest of that which 
would destroy the life of Glaucus, I shall be surely detected ; 
the dead ever find avengers. Nay, dread man! if thy visit to 
me be tracked, if thy hatred to Glaucus be known, thou mayest 
have need of thy archest magic to protect thyself!” 

‘¢ Ha!” said Arbaces, stopping suddenly short; and as a 
proof of that blindness with which passion darkens the eyes 
even of the most acute, this was the first time that the risk he 
himself ran by this method of vengeance had occurred to a 
mind ordinarily wary and circumspect. 

“ But,” continued the witch, “if instead of that which shall 
arrest the heart, I give that which shall sear and blast the 
brain, which shall make him who quaffs it unfit for the uses’ 
and career of life, an abject, raving, benighted thing, smiting 
sense to drivelling, youth to dotage, will not thy vengeance be 
equally sated, thy object equally attained ? ” 

“Oh, witch! no longer the servant, but the sister, the equal 
of Arbaces, how much brighter is woman’s wit, even in ven- 


24 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


geance, than ours! How much more exquisite than death is 
such a doom!” 

“And,” continued the hag, gloating over her fell scheme, 
“in this is but little danger; for by ten thousand methods, 
which men forbear to seek, can our victim become mad. He 
may have been among the vines and seen a nymph,! or the 
vine itself may have had the same effect; ha, ha! they never 
inquire too scrupulously into these matters in which the gods 
may be agents. And let the worst arrive, let it be known 
that it is a love-charm, why, madness is a common effect of 
philtres, and even the fair she that gave it finds indulgence 
in the excuse. Mighty Hermes, have I ministered to thee 
cunningly ?” | 

“Thou shalt have twenty years’ longer date for this,” re- 
turned Arbaces. ‘I will write anew the epoch of thy fate on 
the face of the pale stars; thou shalt not serve in vain the 
Master of the Flaming Belt. And here, Saga, carve thee out, 
by these golden tools, a warmer cell in this dreary cavern ; 
one service to me shall countervail a thousand divinations by 
sieve and shears to the gaping rustics.” So saying, he cast 
upon the floor a heavy purse, which clinked not unmusically to 
the ear of the hag, who loved the consciousness of possessing 
the means to purchase comforts she disdained. “Farewell,” 
said Arbaces; “fail not; outwatch the stars in concocting thy 
beverage ; thou shalt lord it over thy sisters at the Walnut 
Tree,? when thou tellest them that thy patron and thy friend 
is'Hermes the Egyptian. To-morrow night we meet again.” 

He stayed not to hear the valediction or the thanks of the 
witch: with a quick step he passed into the moonlit air, and 
hastened down the mountain. 

The witch, who followed his steps to the threshold, stood 
long at the entrance of the cavern, gazing fixedly on his reced- 
ing form; and as the sad moonlight streamed upon her shad- 


1 To see a nymph was to become mad, according to classic and popular 
superstition. ; 

2 The celebrated and immemorial rendezvous of the witches at Benevento. 
The winged serpent attached to it, long an object of idolatry in those parts, 
was prcbably consecrated by Egyptian superstitions. 


pot 
i ae 


j 
ce 
; 7 


d 
Sted 


‘ THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 25 


owy form and deathlike face, emerging from the dismal rocks, 
it seemed as if one, gifted indeed by supernatural magic, had 
escaped from the dreary Orcus, and the foremost of its ghostly 
throng stood at its black portals, vainly summoning his return, 
or vainly sighing to rejoin him. The hag, then slowly re- 
entering the cave, droningly picked up the heavy purse, took 
the lamp from its stand, and, passing to the remotest depth of 
her cell, a black and abrupt passage, which was not visible save 
at a near approach, closed round as it was with jutting and 
sharp crags, yawned before her; she went several yards along 
this gloomy path, which sloped gradually downwards, as if 
towards the bowels of the earth, and, lifting a stone, deposited 
her treasure in a hole beneath, which, as the lamp pierced 
its secrets, seemed already to contain coins of various value, 
wrung from the credulity or gratitude of her visitors. 

“T love to look at you,” said she, apostrophizing the 
moneys; “for when I see you I feel that I am indeed of 
power. And I am to have twenty years’ longer life to increase 
your store! O thou great Hermes!” 

She replaced the stone, and continued her path onward for 
some paces, when she stopped before a deep, irregular fissure 
in the earth. Here, as she bent, strange, rumbling, hoarse, 
and distant sounds might be heard, while ever and anon, with 
a loud and grating noise, which, to use a homely but faithful 
simile, seemed to resemble the grinding of steel upon wheels, 
volumes of streaming and dark smoke issued forth, and rushed 
spirally along the cavern. 

“The Shades are noisier than their wont,” said the hag, 
shaking her gray locks; and looking into the cavity, she be- 
held, far down, glimpses of a long streak of light, intensely 
but darkly red. “Strange!” she said, shrinking back; “it is 
only within the last two days that dull, deep light hath been 
visible. What can it portend ?” 

The fox, who had attended the steps of his fell mistress, 
uttered a dismal howl, and ran cowering back to the inner 
cave; a cold shuddering seized the hag herself at the cry 
of the animal, which, causeless as it seemed, the superstitions 
of the time considered deeply ominous. She muttered her 


26 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


placatory charm, and tottered back into her cavern, where, 
amidst her herbs and incantations, she prepared to execute the 
orders of the Egyptian. 

‘He called me dotard,” said she, as the smoke curled from 
the hissing caldron; “when the jaws drop, and the grinders 
fall, and the heart scarce beats, it is a pitiable thing to dote; 
but when,” she added, with a savage and exulting grin, “the 
young, and the beautiful, and the strong are suddenly smitten 
into idiocy, — ah, ¢hat is terrible! Burn flame, simmer herb, 
swelter toad; I cursed him, and he shall be cursed !” 

' On that night, and at the same hour which witnessed the 
dark and unholy interview between Arbaces and the Saga, 
Apecides was baptized. 


CHAPTER XI. 


PROGRESS OF EVENTS—THE PLOT THICKENS—THE WEB IS 
WOVEN, BUT THE NET CHANGES HANDS. 


“ Anp you have the courage, then, Julia, to seek the Witch 
of Vesuvius this evening; in company, too, with that fearful 
man?” 

“Why, Nydia,” replied Julia, timidly; “dost thou really 
think there is anything to dread? These old hags, with their 
enchanted mirrors, their trembling sieves, and their moon- 
gathered herbs, are, I imagine, but crafty impostors, who have 
learned, perhaps, nothing but the very charm for which I 
apply to their skill, and which is drawn but from the knowl- 
edge of the field’s herbs and simples, Wherefore should I 
dread ?” 

“Dost thou not fear thy companion ? ” 

“What, Arbaces? By Dian, I never saw lover more cour- 
teous than that same magician! And were he not so dark, he 
would be even handsome.” 

Blind as she was, Nydia had the penetration to perceive that 
Julia’s mind was not one that the gallantries of Arbaces were 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 27 


likely to terrify. She therefore dissuaded her no more, but 
nursed in her excited heart the wild and increasing desire to 
know if sorcery had indeed a spell to fascinate love to love. 

“Let me go with thee, noble Julia,” said she, at length; 
“my presence is no protection, but I should like to be beside 
thee to the last.” 

“Thine offer pleases me much,” replied the daughter of 
Diomed, ‘Yet how canst thou contrive it? We Daya not 
return until late; they will miss thee.” 

“Tone is Be acleunk. ” rephed Nydia. “If thou wilt permit 
me to sleep beneath thy roof, I will say that thou, an early 
patroness and friend, hast invited me to pass the day with 
thee, and sing thee my Thessalian songs; her courtesy will 
readily grant to thee so light a boon.” 

“Nay, ask for thyself!” said the haughty Julia. “I stoop 
to request no favor from the Neapolitan! ” 

“Well, be itso. I will take my leave now, make my request, 
which I know will be readily granted, and return shortly.” 

Do so; and thy bed shall be prepared in my own chamber.” 

With that, Nydia left the fair Pompeian. 

On her way back to Ione she was met by the chariot of 
Glaucus, on whose fiery and curveting steeds was riveted the 
gaze of the crowded street. 

He kindly stopped for a moment to speak to the flower-girl. 

“Blooming as thine own roses, my gentle Nydia! And how 
is thy fair, mistress? Recovered, I trust, from the effects of 
the storm?” 

“JT have not seen her this morning,” answered Nydia, 
“but —” 

‘ But what? Draw back; the horses are too near thee.’ 

“But think you Ione will permit me to pass the day with 
Julia, the daughter of Diomed ? She wishes it, and was kind 
to me when I had few friends.” 

“The gods bless thy grateful heart! I will answer for 
Jone’s permission.” 

“Then I may stay over the night, and return to-morrow ?” 
said Nydia, shrinking from the praise she so little merited. 

“ As thou and fair Julia please. Commend me to her; and 


28 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 


hark ye, Nydia, when thou hearest her speak, note the con- 
trast of her voice with that of the silver-toned Ione. Vale/” 

His spirits entirely recovered from the effects of the past . 
night, his locks waving in the wind, his joyous and elastic 
heart bounding with every spring of his Parthian steeds, a 
very prototype of his country’s god, full of youth and of love, 
— Glaucus was borne rapidly to his mistress. 

Enjoy while ye may the present: who can read the future ? 

As the evening darkened, Julia, reclined within her litter, 
which was capacious enough also to admit her blind com- 
panion, took her way to the rural baths indicated by Arbaces. 
To her natural levity of disposition, her enterprise brought 
less of terror than of pleasurable excitement; above all, she 
glowed at the thought of her coming triumph over the hated 
Neapolitan. 

A small but gay group was collected round the door of the 
villa as her litter passed by it to the private entrance of the 
baths appropriated to the women. | 

“Methinks, by this dim light,” said one of the bystanders, 
“T recognize the slaves of Diomed.” 

“True, Clodius,” said Sallust: “it is probably the litter of 
his daughter Julia. She is rich, my friend; why dost thou 
not proffer thy suit to her?” 

“Why, I had once hoped that Glaucus would have married 
her. She does not disguise her attachment; and then, as he 
gambles freely and with ill-success — ” 

“The sesterces would have passed to thee, wise Clodius. A 
wife is a good thing — when it belongs to another man!” 

“But,” continued Clodius, “as Glaucus is, I understand, to 
wed the Neapolitan, I think I must even try my chance with 
the rejected maid. After all, the lamp of Hymen will be gilt, 
and the vessel will reconcile one to the odor of the flame. I 
shall only protest, my Sallust, against Diomed’s making thee 
trustee to his daughter’s fortune.” } 


1 Tt was an ancient Roman law that no one should make a woman his heir. 
This law was evaded by the parent’s assigning his fortune to a friend in trust 
for his daughter, but the trustee might keep it if he liked. The law had, 
however, fallen into disuse before the date of this story. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 29 


“Ha! ha! let us within, my commissator; the wine and the 
garlands wait us.” 

Dismissing her slaves to that part of the house set apart for 
their entertainment, Julia entered the baths with Nydia, and 
declining the offers of the attendants, passed by a private door 
into the garden behind. 

“She comes by appointment, be sure,” said one of the 
slaves. : 

“What is that to thee?” said a superintendent, sourly; 
“she pays for the baths, and does not waste the saffron. 
Such appointments are the best of the trade. Hark! do you 
not hear the widow Fulvia clapping her hands? Run, fool, — 
run !” 

Julia and Nydia, avoiding the more public part of the 
garden, arrived at the place specified by the Egyptian. Ina 
small circular plot of grass the stars gleamed upon the statue 
of Silenus; the merry god reclined upon a fragment of rock, 
the lynx of Bacchus at his feet, and over his mouth he held, 
with extended arm, a bunch of grapes, which he seemingly 
laughed to welcome ere he devoured. 

“JT see not the magician,” said Julia, looking round; when, 
as she spoke, the Egyptian slowly emerged from the neigh- 
boring foliage, and the light fell palely over his sweepin | 
robes. 

“ Salve, sweet maiden! But ha! whom hast thou here? 
We must have no companions!” 

“Tt is but the blind flower-girl, wise magician,” replied 
Julia; “herself a Thessalian.” 

“Oh, Nydia!” said the Egyptian; “I know her well.” 

Nydia drew back and shuddered. 

“Thou hast been at my house, methinks!” said he, ap- 
proaching his voice to Nydia’s ear; “thou knowest the oath! 
Silence and secrecy, now as then, or beware! Yet,” he 
added, musingly to himself, “why confide more than is ne- 
cessary, even in the blind? Julia, canst thou trust thyself 
alone with me? Believe me, the magician is less formidable 
than he seems.” 

As he spoke he gently drew Julia aside. 


30 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“The witch loves not many visitors at once,” said he; 
‘leave Nydia here till your return; she can be of no assist- 
ance to us: and for protection, your own beauty suffices, — your 
own beauty and your own rank; yes, Julia, | know thy name 
,and birth. Come, trust thyself with me, fair rival of the 
youngest of the Naiads!” 

The vain Julia was not, as we have seen, easily affrighted ; 
she was moved by the flattery of Arbaces, and she readily con- — 
sented to suffer Nydia to await her return; nor did Nydia 
press her presence. At the sound of the Egyptian’s voice all 
her terror of him returned: she felt a sentiment of pleasure 
at learning she was not to travel in his companionship. 

She returned to the bath-house, and in one of the private 
chambers waited their return. Many and bitter were the 
thoughts of this wild girl as she sat there in her eternal dark- 
ness. She thought of her own desolate fate, far from her 
native land, far from the bland cares that once assuaged the 
April sorrows of childhood, deprived of the light of day, 
with none but strangers to guide her: steps, accursed by the 
one soft feeling of her heart, loving and without hope, save 
the dim and unholy ray which shot across her mind, as her 
Thessalian fancies questioned of the force of spells and the 
gifts of magic. 

Nature had sown in the heart of this poor girl the seeds of 
virtue never destined to ripen. The lessons of adversity are 
not always salutary; sometimes they soften and amend, but 
as often they indurate and pervert. If we consider ourselves 
more harshly treated by fate than those around us, and do 
not acknowledge in our own deeds the justice of the severity, 
we become too apt to deem the world our enemy, to case our- 
selves in defiance, to wrestle against our softer self, and to 
indulge the darker passions which are so easily fermented by 
the sense of injustice. Sold early into slavery, sentenced to a 
sordid task-master, exchanging her situation only yet more to 
embitter her lot, —the kindlier feelings, naturally profuse in 
the breast of Nydia, were nipped and blighted. Her sense of 
right and wrong was confused by a passion to which she had 
so madly surrendered herself; and the same intense and tragic 


“THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 31 


emotions which we read of in the women of the classic age, — 
a Myrrha, a Medea, —and which hurried and swept away the 
whole soul when once delivered to love, ruled and rioted in 
her breast. 

Time passed; a light step entered the chamber where 
Nydia yet indulged her gloomy meditations. 

“Oh, thanked be the immortal gods!” said Julia, “I have 
returned; I have left that terrible cavern! Come, Nydia! let 
us away forthwith !” 

It was not till they were seated in the litter that Julia 
again spoke. 

“Oh!” said she, tremblingly, “such a scene! such fearful 
incantations ! and the dead face of the hag !— But let us talk 
not of it. I have obtained the potion; she pledges its effect. 
My rival shall be suddenly indifferent to his eye, and I, I 
alone, the idol of Glaucus.” 

“ Glaucus!” exclaimed Nydia. 

“Ay! I told thee, girl, at first, that it was not the Athenian 
whom I loved; but I see now that I may trust thee wholly, — 
it zs the beautiful Greek !” : 

What then were Nydia’s emotions! She had connived, she 
had assisted, in tearing Glaucus from Ione, but only to trans- 
fer, by all the power of magic, his affections yet more hope- 
lessly to another. Her heart swelled almost to suffocation ; 
she gasped for breath. In the darkness of. the vehicle Julia 
did not perceive the agitation of her companion; she went on 
rapidly dilating on the promised effect of her acquisition, and 
on her approaching triumph over Ione, every now and then 
abruptly digressing to the horror of the scene she had quitted, 
—the unmoved mien of Arbaces, and his authority over the 
dreadful Saga. 

Meanwhile Nydia recovered her self-possession ; a thought 
flashed across her: she slept in the chamber of Julia, she 
might possess herself of the potion. 

They arrived at the house of Diomed, and descended to 
Julia’s apartment, where the night’s repast awaited them. 

“Drink, Nydia, thou must be cold; the air was chill to- 
night; as for me, my veins are yet ice.” 


32 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


And Julia unhesitatingly quaffed deep draughts of the spiced 
wine. 

‘Thou hast the potion,” said Nydia; “let me hold it in 
my hands. How small the phial is! Of what color is the 
draught ? ” 

“Clear as crystal,” replied Julia, as she retook the philtre; 
“thou couldst not tell it from this water. The witch assures 
me it is tasteless. Small though the phial, it suffices for a 
life’s fidelity : it is to be poured into any liquid; and Glaucus 
will only know what he has quaffed by the effect.” 

“ Exactly like this water in appearence?” 

“Yes, sparkling and colorless as this. How bright it seems! 
it is as the very essence of moonlit dews. Bright thing! how 
thou shinest on my hopes through thy crystal vase !” 

“ And how is it sealed ?” 

“But by one little stopper: I withdraw it now; the draught 
gives no odor. Strange, that that which speaks to neither 
sense should thus command all !” 

“Ts the effect instantaneous ? ” 

“ Usually ; but sometimes it remains dormant for a few 
hours.” 

“Oh, how sweet is this perfume!” said Nydia, suddenly, 
as she took up asmall bottle on the table and bent over its 
fragrant contents. 

“Thinkest thou so? The bottle is set with gems of some 
value. Thou wouldst not have the bracelet yestermorn; wilt 
thou take the bottle?” 

“Tt ought to be such perfumes as these that should remind 
one who cannot see of the generous Julia. If the bottle be 
not too costly —” 

‘Oh, I have a thousand costlier ones; take it, child!” 

Nydia bowed her gratitude, and placed the bottle in her 
vest. 

“And the draught would be equally efficacious, whoever 
adminsters it ?” 

“Tf the most hideous hag beneath the sun bestowed it, such 
is its asserted virtue that Glaucus would deem her beautiful, 
and none but her!” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 33 


Julia, warmed by wine, and the reaction of her spirits, was 
now all animation and delight: she laughed loud and talked 
on a hundred matters; nor was it till the night had advanced 
far towards morning that she summoned her slaves and 
undressed. 

When they were dismissed, she said to Nydia, — 

“JT will not suffer this holy draught to quit my presence till 
the hour comes for its uses. Lie under my pillow, bright 
spirit, and give me happy dreams!” 

So saying, she placed the potion under her pillow. Nydia’s 
heart beat violently. 

“ Why dost thou drink that unmixed water, Nydia? Take 
the wine by its side.” 

“T am fevered,” replied the blind girl, “and the water cools 
me. I will place this bottle by my bedside; it refreshes in 
these summer nights, when the dews of sleep fall not on our 
lips. Fair Julia, I must leave thee very early, — so Ione bids, 
— perhaps before thou art awake; accept therefore now my 
congratulations.” 

“Thanks: when next we meet you may find Glaucus at my 
feet.’ 

They had retired to their couches, and Julia, worn out by 
the excitement of the day, soon slept. But anxious and burn- 
ing thoughts rolled over the mind of the wakeful Thessalian. 
She listened to the calm breathing of Julia; and her ear, ac- 
customed to the finest distinctions of sound, speedily assured 
her of the deep slumber of her companion. 

“Now befriend me, Venus!” said she, softly. 

She rose gently, and poured the perfume from the gift of 
Julia upon the marble floor; she rinsed it several times care- 
fully with the water that was beside her, and then easily find- 
ing the bed of Julia (for night to her was as day), she pressed 
her trembling hand under the pillow and seized the potion. 
Julia stirred not; her breath regularly fanned the burning 
cheek of the blind girl. Nydia, then, opening the phial, 
poured its contents into the bottle, which easily contained 
them; and then refilling the former reservoir of the potion 
with that limpid water which Julia had assured her it so 


VOL. II. ——8 


34 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


resembled, she once more placed the phial in its former place. 
She then stole again to her couch and waited — with what 
thoughts ! —the dawning day. 

The sun had risen: Julia slept still; Nydia noiselessly 
dressed herself, placed her treasure carefully in her vest, took 
up her staff, and hastened to quit the house. 

The porter, Medon, saluted her kindly as she descended 
the steps that led to the street; she heard him not; her mind 
was confused and lost in the whirl of tumultuous thoughts, 
each thought a passion. She felt the pure morning air upon 
her cheek, but it cooled not her scorching veins. 

“ Glaucus,” she murmured, “all the love-charms of the 
wildest magic could not make thee love me as I love thee. 
Jone! ah; away hesitation! away remorse! Glaucus, my fate 
is in thy smile; and thine! O hope! O joy! O transport! thy 
fate is in these hands !” 


BOOK IV. 


Philtra nocent animis, vimque furoris habent. — Ov1p. 


Philtres are baneful to the reasoning mind, 
And have the strength of madness. 


CHAPTER I. 


REFLECTIONS ON THE ZEAL OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. — TWO 
MEN COME TO A PERILOUS RESOLVE. — WALLS HAVE EARS,—- 
PARTICULARLY SACRED WALLS. 


WHOEVER regards the early history of Christianity will 
perceive how necessary to its triumph was that fierce spirit of 
zeal, which, fearing no danger, accepting no compromise, in- 
spired its champions and sustained its martyrs. In a domi- 
nant church the genius of intolerance detrays its cause; in a 
weak and a persecuted church, the same genius mainly sup- 
ports. It was necessary to scorn, to loathe, to abhor the 
ereeds of other men, in order to conquer the temptations 
which they presented; it was necessary rigidly to believe not 
only that the Gospel was the true faith, but the sole true faith 
that saved, in order to nerve the disciple to the austerity of 
its doctrine, and to encourage him to the sacred and perilous 
chivalry of converting the Polytheist and the Heathen. The 
sectarian sternness which confined virtue and heaven to a 
chosen few, which saw demons in other gods, and the penal- 
ties of hell in another religion, made the believer naturally 
anxious to convert all to whom he felt the ties of human affec- 
tion; and the circle thus traced by benevolence to man was 
yet more widened by a desire for the glory of God. It 
was for the honor of the Christian faith that the Christian 
boldly forced its tenets upon the scepticism of some, the 


36 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


repugnance of others, the sage contempt of the philosopher, the 
pious shudder of the people: his very intolerance supplied 
him with his fittest instruments of success; and the soft 
Heathen began at last to imagine there must indeed be some- 
thing holy in a zeal wholly foreign to his experience, which 
stopped at no obstacle, dreaded no danger, and even at the 
torture or on the scaffold referred a dispute far other than 
the calm differences of speculative philosophy to the tribunal 
of an Eternal Judge. It was thus that the same fervor 
which made the Churchman of the middle age a bigot without 
mercy, made the Christian of the early days a hero without 
fear. 

Of these more fiery, daring, and earnest natures, not the 
least ardent was Olinthus. No sooner had Apecides been 
received by the rites of baptism into the bosom of the Church, 
than the Nazarene hastened to make him conscious of the im- 
possibility to retain the office and robes of priesthood. He 
could not, it was evident, profess to worship God, and con- 
tinue even outwardly to honor the idolatrous altars of the 
Fiend. 

Nor was this all: the sanguine and impetuous mind of 
Olinthus beheld in the power of Apecides the means of di- 
vulging to the deluded people the juggling mysteries of the 
oracular Isis. He thought Heaven had sent this instrument 
of his design in order to disabuse the eyes of the crowd, and 
prepare the way, perchance, for the conversion of a whole 
city. He did not hesitate then to appeal to all the new- 
kindled enthusiasm of Apecides, to arouse his courage, and 
to stimulate his zeal. They met, according to previous agree- 
ment, the evening after the baptism of Apzecides, in the grove 
of Cybele, which we have before described. 

“At the next solemn consultation of the oracle,” said 
Olinthus, as he proceeded in the warmth of his address, 
“advance yourself to the railing, proclaim aloud to the people 
the deception they endure, invite them to enter, to be them- 
selves the witness of the gross but artful mechanism of im- 
posture thou hast described tome. Fear not: the Lord, who 
protected Daniel, shall protect thee; we, the community of 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 37 


Christians, will be amongst the crowd; we will urge on the 
shrinking; and in the first flush of the popular indignation 
and shame, I myself, upon those very altars, will plant the 
palm-branch typical of the Gospel, and to my tongue shall 
descend the rushing Spirit of the living God.” 

Heated and excited as he was, this suggestion was not un- 
pleasing to Apeecides. He was rejoiced at so early an oppor- 
tunity of distinguishing his faith in his new sect, and to his 
holier feelings were added those of a vindictive loathing at the 
imposition he had himself suffered, and a desire to avenge 
it. In that sanguine and elastic overbound of obstacles (the 
rashness necessary to all who undertake venturous and lofty 
actions), neither Olinthus nor the proselyte perceived the 
impediments to the success of their scheme, which might be 
found in the reverent superstition of the people themselves, 
who would probably be loth, before the sacred altars of the 
great Egyptian goddess, to believe even the testimony of her 
priest against her power. 

Apecides then assented to this proposal with a readiness 
which delighted Olnthus. They parted with the under- 
standing that Olinthus should confer with the more important 
of his Christian brethren on his great enterprise, should re- 
ceive their advice and the assurances of their support on the 
eventful day. It so chanced that one of the festivals of Isis 
was to be held on the second day after this conference. The 
festival proffered a ready occasion for the design. They ap- 
pointed to meet once more on the next evening at the same 
spot; and in that meeting were finally to be settled the order 
and details of the disclosure for the following day. 

It happened that the latter part of this conference had been 
held near the sacellum, or small chapel, which I have de- 
scribed in the early part of this work; and so soon as the 
forms of the Christian and the priest had disappeared from 
the grove, a dark and ungainly figure emerged from behind 
the chapel. 

“T have tracked you with some effect, my brother flamen,” 
soliloquized the eavesdropper; “you, the priest of Isis, have 
not for mere idle discussion conferred with this gloomy 


88 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Christian. Alas! that I could not hear all your precious plot: 
enough! I find, at least, that you meditate revealing the sa- 
cred mysteries, and that to-morrow you meet again at this place 
to plan the how and the when. May Osiris sharpen my ears 
then to detect the whole of your unheard-of audacity! When 
I have learned more, I must confer at once with Arbaces. We 
will frustrate you, my friends, deep as you think yourselves. 
At present, my breast is a locked treasury of your secret.” 

Thus muttering, Calenus, for it was he, wrapped his robe 
round him, and strode thoughtfully homeward. 


CHAPTER II. 


A CLASSIC HOST, COOK, AND KITCHEN. —APACIDES SEEKS 
IONE. — THEIR CONVERSATION, 


Ir was then the day for Diomed’s banquet to the most select 
of his friends. The graceful Glaucus, the beautiful Ione, the 
official Pansa, the high-born Clodius, the immortal Fulvius, the 
exquisite Lepidus, the epicurean Sallust, were not the only 
honorers of his festival. He expected also an invalid senator 
from Rome (a man of considerable repute and favor at court ) 
and a great warrior from Herculaneum, who had fought with 
Titus against the Jews, and having enriched himself prodig- 
lously in the wars, was always told by his friends that his 
country was eternally indebted to his disinterested exertions ! 
The party, however, extended to a yet greater number; for 
although, critically speaking, it was at one time thought in- 
elegant among the Romans to entertain less than three or more 
than nine at their banquets, yet this rule was easily disre- 
garded by the ostentatious. And we are told, indeed, in his- 
tory, that one of the most splendid of these entertainers 
usually feasted a select party of three hundred. Diomed, 
however, more modest, contented himself with doubling the 
number of the Muses. His party consisted of eighteen, — no 
unfashionable number in the present day. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 389 


It was the morning of Diomed’s banquet, and Diomed him- 
self, though he greatly affected the gentleman and the scholar, 
retained enough of his mercantile experience to know that a 
master’s eye makes a ready servant. Accordingly, with his 
tunic ungirdled on his portly stomach, his easy slippers on his 
feet, a small wand in his hand, wherewith he now directed the 
gaze and now corrected the back, of some duller menial, he 
went from chamber to chamber of his costly villa. 

He did not disdain even a visit to that sacred apartment in 
which the priests of the festival prepare their offerings. On 
entering the kitchen, his ears were agreeably stunned by the 
noise of dishes and pans, of oaths and commands. Small as 
this indispensable chamber seems to have been in all the 
houses of Pompeiii, it was nevertheless usually fitted up with 
all that amazing variety of stoves and shapes, stewpans and 
saucepans, cutters and moulds, without which a cook of spirit, 
no matter whether he be an ancient or a modern, declares it 
utterly impossible that he can give you anything to eat. And 
as fuel was then, as now, dear and scarce in those regions, great 
seems to have been the dexterity exercised in preparing as 
many things as possible with as little fire. An admirable con- 
trivance of this nature may be still seen in the Neapolitan 
Museum; namely, a portable kitchen, about the size of a folio 
volume, containing stoves for four dishes, and an apparatus 
for heating water or other beverages. 

Across the small kitchen flitted many forms which the 
quick eye of the master did not recognize. 

“Oh! oh!” grumbled he to himself, “that cursed Congrio 
hath invited a whole legion of cooks to assist him. They won’t 
serve for nothing, and this is another item in the total of my 
day’s expenses. By Bacchus! thrice lucky shall I be if the slaves 
do not help themselves to some of the drinking-vessels : ready, 
alas, are their hands, capacious are their tunics! Me miserum!” 

The cooks, however, worked on, seemingly heedless of the 
apparition of Diomed. 

‘Ho, Euclio, your egg-pan! What, is this the largest ? it 
only holds thirty-three eggs: in the houses J usually serve, 
the smallest egg-pan holds fifty, if need be!” 


40 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“The unconscionable rogue!” thought Diomed; “he talks 
of eggs as if they were a sesterce a hundred!” 

“ By Mercury !” cried a pert little culinary disciple, scarce 
in his novitiate, “whoever saw such antique sweetmeat shapes 
as these ? —it is impossible to do credit to one’s art with 
such rude materials. Why, Sallust’s commonest sweetmeat 
shape represents the whole siege of Troy, —Hector and Paris 
and Helen, with little Astyanax and the Wooden Horse into 
the bargain ! ” 

“Silence, fool!” said Congrio, the cook of the house, wha 
seemed to leave the chief part of the battle to his allies. 
“ My master, Diomed, is not one of those expensive good-for- 
noughts who must have the last fashion, cost what it will!” 

“Thou liest, base slave!” cried Diomed, in a great passion ; 
“and thou costest me already enough to have ruined Lucullus 
himself! Come out of thy den; I want to talk to thee.” 

The slave, with a sly wink at his confederates, obeyed the 
command. 

“Man of three letters,’’? said Diomed, with his face of sol- 
emn anger, “ how didst thou dare to invite all those rascals into 
my house? I see thief written in every line of their faces.” 

“Yet I assure you, master, that they are men of most 
respectable character, —the best cooks of the place; it is a 
great favor to get them. But for my sake —” 

“Thy sake, unhappy Congrio!” interrupted Diomed; “and 
by what purloined moneys of mine, by what reserved filch- 
ings from marketing, by what goodly meats converted into 
grease and sold in the suburbs, by what false charges for 
bronzes marred and earthenware broken, hast thou been 
enabled to make them serve thee for thy sake?” 

“Nay, master, do not impeach my honesty! May the gods 
desert me if —” 

“Swear not!” again interrupted the choleric Diomed, “for 
then the gods will smite thee for a perjurer, and I shall lose 
my cook on the eve of dinner. But enough of this at present: 
keep a sharp eye on thy ill-favored assistants, and tell me no 
tales to-morrow of vases broken and cups miraculously van- 


1 The common witty objurgation, from the triliteral word “fur ” (thief). 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 41 


ished, or thy whole back shall be one pain. And hark thee! 
thou knowest thou hast made me pay for those Phrygian 
attagens* enough, by Hercules! to have feasted a sober man 
for a year together; see that they be not one iota over-roasted. 
The last time, O Congrio, that I gave a banquet to my friends, 
when thy vanity did so boldly undertake the becoming ap- 
pearance of a Melian crane, thou knowest it came up like a 
stone from Avtna, as if all the fires of Phiegethon had been 
scorching out its juices. Be modest this time, Congrio, — 
wary and modest. Modesty is the nurse of great actions: and 
in all other things, as in this, if thou wilt not spare thy 
master’s purse, at least consult thy master’s glory.” 

“There shall not be such a ccena seen at Pompeii since the 
days of Hercules.” 

“Softly, softly; thy cursed boasting again! But I say, 
Congrio, yon homunculus, yon pygmy assailant of my cranes, 
yon pert-tongued neophite of the kitchen, — was there aught 
but insolence on his tongue when he maligned the comeliness 
of my sweetmeat shapes? I would not be out of the fashion, 
Congrio.” 

“Tt is but the custom of us cooks,” replied Congrio, gravely, 
“to undervalue our tools, in order to increase the effect of our 
art. The sweetmeat shape is a fair shape, and a lovely; but 
I would recommend my master at the first occasion to purchase 
some new ones of a —” 

“That will suffice,” exclaimed Diomed, who seemed resolved 
never to allow his slave to finish his sentences. ‘“ Now, resume 
thy charge; shine, eclipse thyself. Let men envy Diomed his 
cook, let the slaves of Pompeii style thee Congrio the great! 
Go! Yet stay; thou hast not spent all the moneys I gave 
thee for the marketing ? ” : 

“¢ 4]l/’ Alas! the nightingales’ tongues and the Roman 
tomacula,? and the oysters from Britain, and sundry other 


1 The attagen of Phrygia or Ionia (the bird thus anglicised in the plural) 
was held in peculiar esteem by the Romans. “ Attagen carnis suavissime.” 
(Athen., lib. ix. cap. 8,9.) It was a little bigger than a partridge. 

2 “__ candiduli divina tomacula porci.” (Juvenal, x. 1. 355.) A rich and 
delicate species of sausage. 


42 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


things too numerous now to recite, are yet left unpaid for. 
But what matter? Every one trusts the Archimagirus? of 
Diomed the wealthy!” 

“Oh, unconscionabie prodigal! what waste! what profu- 
sion! Iam ruined! But go! hasten! inspect! taste! per- 
form! surpass thyself! Let the Roman senator not despise 
the poor Pompeian. Away, slave; and remember, the Phry- 
gian attagens.” 

The chief disappeared within his natural domain, and 
Diomed rolled back his portly presence to the more courtly 
chambers. All was to his liking; the flowers were fresh, the 
fountains played briskly, the mosaic pavements were smooth 
as mirrors. 

‘Where is my daughter Julia?” he asked. 

“ At the bath.” 

“Ah, that reminds me! time wanes! and I must bathe 
also.” 

Our story returns to Apeecides. On awaking that day from 
the broken and feverish sleep which had followed his adoption 
of a faith so strikingly and sternly at variance with that in 
which his youth had been nurtured, the young priest could 
scarcely imagine that he was not yet ina dream; he had 
crossed the fatal river, — the past was henceforth to have no 
sympathy with the future; the two worlds were distinct and 
separate, that which had been, from that which was to be. 
To what a bold and adventurous enterprise he had pledged his 
life !— to unveil the mysteries in which he had participated, 
to desecrate the altars he had served, to denounce the goddess 
whose ministering robe he wore! Slowly he became sensible 
of the hatred and the horror he should provoke amongst 
the pious, even if successful; if frustrated in his daring 
attempt, what penalties might he not incur for an offence 
hitherto unheard of,—for which no specific law, derived 
from experience, was prepared, and which, for that very rea- 
son, precedents, dragged from the sharpest armory of obsolete 
and inapplicable legislation, would probably be distorted to 
meet! His friends, the sister of his youth, — could he expect 


1 Archimagirus was the lofty title of the chief cook. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 43 


justice, though he might receive compassion from them? This 
brave and heroic act would by their heathen eyes be regarded, 
perhaps, as a heinous apostasy,—at the best as a pitiable 
madness. 

He dared, he renounced everything in this world in the hope 
of securing that eternity in the next which had so suddenly 
been revealed to him. While these thoughts on the one hand 
invaded his breast, on the other hand his pride, his courage, 
and his virtue mingled with reminiscences of revenge for 
deceit, of indignant disgust at fraud, conspired to raise and 
to support him. 

The conflict was sharp and keen; but his new feelings 
triumphed over his old, and a mighty argument in favor of 
wrestling with the sanctities of old opinions and hereditary 
forms might be found in the conquest over both, achieved by 
that humble priest. Had the early Christians been more con- 
trolled by “the solemn plausibilities of custom,’ —less of 
democrats in the pure and lofty acceptation of that perverted 
word, — Christianity would have perished in its cradle! 

As each priest in succession slept several nights together in 
the chambers of the temple, the term imposed on Apecides 
was not yet completed; and when he had risen from his 
couch, attired himself as usual in his robes, and left his narrow 
chamber, he found himself before the altars of the temple. 

In the exhaustion of his late emotions he had slept far into 
the morning, and the vertical sun already poured its fervid 
beams over the sacred place. 

“ Salve, Apecides!” said a voice, whose natural asperity was 
smoothed by long artifice into an almost displeasing softness 
of tone. “Thou art late abroad; has the goddess revealed 
herself to thee in visions ?” 

“Could she reveal her true self to the people, Calenus, how 
incenseless would be these altars ! ” 

“That,” replied Calenus, “may possibly be true; but the 
deity is wise enough to hold commune with none but 
priests.” 

“A time may come when she will be unveiled without her 
own acquiescence.” 


44 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Tt is not likely: she has triumphed for countless ages. 
And that which has so long stood the test of time rarely suc- 
cumbs to the lust of novelty. But hark ye, young brother! 
these sayings are indiscreet.” 

“Tt is not for thee to silence them,” replied Apecides, 
haughtily. 

“So hot! yet I will not quarrel with thee. Why, my 
Apecides, has not the Egyptian convinced thee of the neces- — 
sity of our dwelling together in unity ? Has he not convinced 
thee of the wisdom of deluding the people and enjoying our- 
selves? If not, O brother, he is not that great magician 
he is esteemed.” 

“Thou, then, hast shared his lessons?” said Apzcides, 
with a hollow smile. 

“Ay! but I stood less in need of them than thou. Nature 
had already gifted me with the love of pleasure and the desire 
of gain and power. Long is the way that leads the volup- 
tuary to the severities of life; but it is only one step from 
pleasant sin to sheltering hypocrisy. Beware the vengeance 
of the goddess, if the shortness of that step be disclosed!” 

“ Beware, thou, the hour when the tomb shall be rent 
and the rottenness exposed,” returned Apecides, solemnly. 
“Valei?? 

With these words he left the flamen to his meditations. 
When he got a few paces from the temple, he turned to look 
back. Calenus had already disappeared in the entry room of 
the priests, for it now approached the hour of that repast 
which, called prandiuwm by the ancients, answers in point of 
date to the breakfast of the moderns. ‘The white and graceful 
fane gleamed brightly in the sun. Upon the altars before it 
rose the incense and bloomed the garlands. The priest gazed 
long and wistfully upon the scene; it was the last time that 
it was ever beheld by him. 

He then turned and pursued his way slowly towards the 
house of Ione; for before possibly the last tie that united 
them was cut in twain, before the uncertain peril of the next 
day was incurred, he was anxious to see his last surviving 
relative, his fondest as his earliest friend. 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 45 


He arrived at her house, and found her in the garden with 
Nydia. 

“This is kind, Apzecides,” said Ione, joyfully; “and how 
eagerly have I wished to see thee! what thanks do I not owe 
thee! How churlish hast thou been to answer none of my 
letters, to abstain from coming hither to receive the expres- 
sions of my gratitude! Oh, thou hast assisted to preserve 
thy sister from dishonor! What, what can she say to thank 
thee, now thou art come at last?” 

“My sweet Ione, thou owest me no gratitude, for thy cause 
was mine. Let us avoid that subject — let us not recur to 
that impious man, — how hateful to both of us! I may have 
a speedy opportunity to teach the world the nature of his 
pretended wisdom and hypocritical severity. But let us sit 
down, my sister; I am wearied with the heat of the sun; let 
us sit in yonder shade, and for a little while longer be to 
each other what we have been.” 

Beneath a wide plane-tree, with the cistus and the arbutus 
clustering round them, the living fountain before, the green- 
sward beneath their feet; the gay cicada, once so dear to 
Athens, rising merrily ever and anon amidst the grass; the 
butterfly, beautiful emblem of the soul, dedicated to Psyche, 
and which has continued to furnish illustrations to the Chris- 
tian bard, rich in the glowing colors caught from Sicilian 
skies,’ hovering above the sunny flowers, itself like a winged 
flower, — in this spot and this scene the brother and the sister 
sat together for the last time on earth. You may tread now 
on the same place; but the garden is no more, the columns 
are shattered, the fountain hath ceased to play. Let the 
traveller search amongst the ruins of Pompeii for the house of 
Jone. Its remains are yet visible; but I will not betray them 
to the gaze of commonplace tourists. He who is more sensi- 
tive than the herd will discover them easily: when he has 
done so, let him keep the secret. 

They sat down, and Nydia, glad to be alone, Anes to the 
farther end of the garden. 

“Jone, my sister,” said the young convert, “place your 

1 Tn Sicily are found, perhaps, the most beautiful varieties of the butterfly. 


46 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


hand upon my brow; let me feel your cool touch. Speak to 
me, too, for your gentle voice is like a breeze that hath fresh- 
ness as well as music. Speak to me, but forbear to bless me! 
Utter not one word of those forms of speech which our child- 
hood was taught to consider sacred!” 

“ Alas! and what then shall I say? Our language of affec- 
tion is so woven with that of worship, that the words grow 
chilled and trite if I banish from them allusion to our gods.” 

“Our gods/” murmured Apzcides with a shudder: “thou 
slightest my request already.” 

“Shall I speak then to thee only of Isis ?” 

“The Evil Spirit! No, rather be dumb forever, unless at 
least thou canst— but away, away this talk! Not now will 
we dispute and cavil; not now will we judge harshly of each 
other; thou regarding me as an apostate, and I all sorrow 
and shame for thee as an idolater. No, my sister, let us avoid 
such topics and such thoughts. In thy sweet presence a calm 
falls over my spirit; for a little while I forget. As I thus 
lay my temples on thy bosom, as J thus feel thy gentle arm 
embrace me, I think that we are children once more, and that 
the heaven smiles equally upon both. For oh, if hereafter 
I escape, no matter what peril; and it be permitted me to 
address thee on one sacred and awful subject, should I find 
thine ear closed and thy heart hardened, what hope for myself 
could countervail the despair for thee? In thee, my sister, 
I behold a likeness made beautiful, made noble, of myself. 
Shall the mirror live forever and the form itself be broken as 
the potter’s clay ? Ah, no—no—thou wilt listen to me yet! 
Dost thou remember how we went into the fields by Baie, 
hand in hand together, to pluck the flowers of spring? Even 
so, hand in hand, shall we enter the Eternal Garden, and 
crown ourselves with imperishable asphodel!” 

Wondering and bewildered by words she could not com- 
prehend, but excited even to tears by the plaintiveness of 
their tone, Ione listened to these outpourings of a full and 
oppressed heart. In truth Apecides himself was softened 
much beyond his ordinary mood, which to outward seeming 
was usually either sullen or impetuous. For the noblest 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 47 


desires are of a jealous nature; they engross, they absorb the 
soul, and often leave the splenetic humors stagnant and un- 
heeded at the surface. Unheeding the petty things around us, 
we are deemed morose; impatient at earthly interruption to 
the diviner dreams, we are thought irritable and churlish. 
For as there is no chimera vainer than the hope that one 
human heart shall find sympathy in another, so none ever 
interpret us with justice; and none, no, not our nearest and 
our dearest ties, forbear with us in mercy! When we are 
dead and repentance comes too late, both friend and foe may 
wonder to think how little there was in us to forgive! 

“J will talk to thee then of our early years,” said Ione. 
“Shall yon blind girl sing to thee of the days of childhood ? 
Her voice is sweet and musical, and she hath a song on that 
theme which contains none of those allusions it pains thee 
to hear.” 

“Dost thou remember the words, my sister?” asked Ape- 
cides. 

“Methinks yes; for the tune, which is simple, fixed them 
on my memory.” | 

“Sing to me then thyself. My ear is not in unison with 
unfamiliar voices; and thine, Ione, full of household associa- 
tions, has ever been to me more sweet than all the hireling 
melodies of Lycia or of Crete. Sing to me!” 

Ione beckoned to a slave that stood in the portico, and 
sending for her lute, sang, when it arrived, to a tender and 
simple air, the following verses : — 


REGRET FOR CHILDHOOD. 


I. 


It is not that our earlier Heaven 
Escapes its April showers, 
Or that to childhood’s heart is given 
No snake amidst the flowers. 
Ah! twined with grief 
Each brightest leaf 
That ’s wreath’d us by the Hours! 


48 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Young though we be, the Past may sting, 
The Present feed its sorrow, 
But hope shines bright on everything 
That waits us with the morrow. 
Like sunlit glades, 
The dimmest shades 
Some rosy beam can borrow. 


II. 


It is not that our later years 
Of cares are woven wholly, 
But smiles less swiftly chase the tears, 
And wounds are healed more slowly ; 
And memory’s vow 
To lost ones now, 
Makes joys too bright, unholy ; 
And ever fled the Iris bow 
That smiled when clouds were o’er us. 
If storms should burst, uncheered we go, 
A drearier waste before us ; — 
And with the toys 
Of childish joys 
We’ve broke the staff that bore us! 


Wisely and delicately had Ione chosen that song, sad though 
its burden seemed; for when we are deeply mournful, dis- 
cordant above all others is the voice of mirth: the fittest spell 
is that borrowed from melancholy itself, for dark thoughts can 
be softened down when they cannot be brightened; and so. 
they lose the precise and rigid outline of their truth, and their — 
colors melt into the ideal. As the leech apples in remedy to 
the internal sore some outward irritation, which, by a gentler 
wound, draws away the venom of that which is more deadly, 
thus in the rankling festers of the mind our art is to divert 
to a milder sadness on the surface the pain that gnaweth at 
the core. And so with Apzcides, yielding to the influence of 
the silver voice that reminded him of the past, and told but 
of half the sorrow born to the present, he forgot his more 
immediate and fiery sources of anxious thought. He spent 
hours in making Ione alternately sing to and converse with 
him; and when he rose to leave her, it was with a calmed and 
lulled mind. 


'THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 49 


“Tone,” said he, as he pressed her hand, “should you 
hear my name blackened and maligned, will you credit the 
aspersion ? ” 

“¢ Never, my brother, never!” 

“Dost thou not imagine, according to thy belief, that the 
evil-doer is punished hereafter, and the good rewarded ? ” 

“Can you doubt it?” 

“Dost thou think, then, that he who is truly good’ should 
sacrifice every selfish interest in his zeal for virtue ?” 

‘“‘ He who does so is the equal of the gods.” 

“And thou believest that according to the purity and 
courage with which he thus acts shall be his portion of bliss 
beyond the grave ?” 

“So we are taught to hope.” 

“ Kiss me, my sister. One question more. Thou art to be 
wedded to Glaucus,— perchance that marriage may separate 
us more hopelessly; but not of this speak I now, —thou art 
to be married to Glaucus; dost thou love him? Nay, my 
sister, answer me by words.” 

“Yes!” murmured Ione, blushing. 

“Dost thou feel that for his sake thou couldst renounce 
pride, brave dishonor, and incur death? I have heard that 
when women really love, it is to that excess.” 

“My brother, all this could I do for Glaucus, and feel that 
it were not a sacrifice. There is no sacrifice to those who love, 
in what is\borne for the one we love.” 

“Enough! Shall woman feel thus for man, and man feel 
less devotion to his God?” 

He spoke no more. His whole countenance seemed instinct 
and inspired with a divine life; his chest swelled proudly ; 
his eyes glowed; on his forehead was writ the majesty of a 
man who can dare be noble. He turned to meet the eyes of 
Jone, — earnest, wistful, fearful; he kissed her fondly, strained 
her warmly to his breast, and in a moment more he had left 
the house. 

Long did Ione remain in the same place, mute and thought- 
ful. The maidens again and again came to warn her of the 
deepening noon, and her engagement to Diomed’s banquet. 

VOL. I1.—4 


50 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


At length she woke from her reverie, and prepared not with 
the pride of beauty, but listless and melancholy, for the fes- 
tival. One thought alone reconciled her to the promised visit, 
—she should meet Glaucus; she could confide to him her 
alarm and uneasiness for her brother. 


CHAPTER III. 
A FASHIONABLE PARTY AND A DINNER A LA MODE IN POMPEII. 


MEANWHILE Sallust and Glaucus were slowly strolling 
towards the house of Diomed. Despite the habits of his 
life, Sallust was not devoid of many estimable qualities. He 
would have been an active friend, a useful citizen, in short, 
an excellent man, if he had not taken it into his head to be 
a philosopher. Brought up in the schools in which Roman 
plagiarism worshipped the echo of Grecian wisdom, he had 
imbued himself with those doctrines by which the later Epi- 
cureans corrupted the simple maxims of their great master. 
He gave himself altogether up to pleasure, and imagined there 
was no sage like a boon companion. Still, however, he had a 
considerable degree of learning, wit, and good-nature; and the 
hearty frankness of his very vices seemed lke virtue itself 
beside the utter corruption of Clodius and the prostrate effemi- 
nacy of Lepidus, and therefore Glaucus liked him the best 
of his companions; and he, in turn, appreciating the nobler 
qualities of the Athenian, loved him almost as much as a cold 
murena, or a bowl of the best Falernian. 

“This is a vulgar old fellow, this Diomed,” said Sallust ; 
“but he has some good qualities — in his cellar.” 

“ And some charming ones —in his daughter.” 

“True, Glaucus; but you are not much moved by them, me- 
thinks. I fancy Clodius is desirous to be your successor.” 

“He is welcome. At the banquet of Julia’s beauty, no 
guest, be sure, is considered a musca.”’ } 


1 Unwelcome and uninvited guests were called musce, or flies. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 51 


“You are severe; but she has, indeed, something of the 
Corinthian about her: they will be well matched, after all! 
What good-natured fellows we are to associate with that gam- 
bling good-for-nought.” 

“Pleasure unites strange varieties,” answered Glaucus. 
- “We amuses me — ” 

“ And flatters; but then he pays himself well. He powders 
his praise with gold-dust.” 

“You often hint that he plays unfairly; think you so 
realy te 

“My dear Glaucus, a Roman noble has his dignity to keep 
up; dignity is very expensive; Clodius must cheat like a 
scoundrel in order to live like a gentleman.” 

“Ha, ha! Well, of late I have renounced the dice. Ah, 
Sallust, when I am wedded to Ione, I trust I may yet redeem 
a youth of follies. Weare both born for better things than 
those in which we sympathize now; born to render our wor- 
ship in nobler temples than the sty of Epicurus.” 

“Alas!” returned Sallust, in rather a melancholy tone, 
“what do we know more than this, — life is short, beyond the 
grave all is dark? ‘There is no wisdom like that which says 
“enjoy. ” 

“By Bacchus! I doubt sometimes if we do enjoy the utmost 
of which life is capable.” 

“T am a moderate man,” returned Sallust, “and do not 
ask ‘the utmost.? We are like malefactors, and intoxicate 
ourselves with wine and myrrh as we stand on the brink 
of death; but if we did not do so, the abyss would look 
very disagreeable. I own that I was inclined to be gloomy 
until I took so heartily to drinking; that is a new life, my 
Glaucus.” 

“Yes, but it brings us next morning to a new death.” 

“Why, the next morning is unpleasant, I own; but then, if 
it were not so, one would never be inclined to read. I study 
betimes ; because, by the gods! I am generally unfit for any- 
thing else till noon!” 

“Fie, Scythian !” 

““Pshaw! the fate of Pentheus to him who denies Bacchus.” 


52 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


“Well, Sallust, with all your faults, you are the best profli- 
gate I ever met; and verily, if I were in danger of life, you 
are the only man in all Italy who would stretch out a finger 
to save me.” 

“Perhaps J should not, if it were in the middle of supper. 
But, in truth, we Italians are fearfully selfish.” 

“So are all men who are not free,” said Glaucus, with a sigh, 
“Freedom alone makes men sacrifice to each other.” 

“Freedom, then, must be a very fatiguing thing to an Epi- 
curean,” answered Sallust. “ But here we are at our host’s.” 

As Diomed’s villa is one of the most considerable in point 
of size of any yet discovered at Pompeii, and is, moreover, 
built much according to the specific instructions for a suburban 
villa laid down by the Roman architect, 1t may not be uninter- 
esting briefly to describe the plan of the apartments through 
which our visitors passed. 

They entered, then, by the same small vestibule at which we 
have before been presented to the aged Medon, and passed at 
once into a colonnade, technically termed the peristyle; for 
the main difference between the suburban villa and the town 
mansion consisted in placing in the first the said colonnade, in 
exactly the same place as that which in the town mansion was 
occupied by the atrium. In the centre of the peristyle was an 
open court, which contained the impluvium. 

From this peristyle descended a staircase to the offices; 
another narrow passage on the opposite side communicated 
with a garden; various small apartments surrounded the colon- 
nade, appropriated probably to country visitors. Another door 
to the left on entering communicated with a small triangular 
portico, which belonged to the baths; and behind was the 
wardrobe, in which were kept the vests of the holiday suits of 
the slaves, and perhaps of the master. Seventeen centuries 
afterwards were found those relics of ancient finery, calcined 
and crumbling; kept longer, alas! than their thrifty lord 
foresaw. 

Return we to the peristyle, and endeavor now to present to 
the reader a coup dail of the whole suite of apartments, which 
immediately stretched before the steps of the visitors. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 53 


Let him then first imagine the columns of the portico, hung 
with festoons of flowers; the columns themselves in the lower 
part painted red, and the walls around glowing with various 
frescos; then looking beyond a curtain, three parts drawn 
aside, the eye caught the tablinum or saloon (which was closed 
at will by glazed doors, now slid back into the walls). On 
either side of this tablinum were small rooms, one of which 
was a kind of cabinet of gems; and these apartments, as well 
as the tablinum, communicated with a long gallery, which 
opened at either end upon terraces; and between the terraces, 
and communicating with the central part of the gallery, was a 
hall, in which the banquet was that day prepared. All these 
apartments, though almost on a level with the street, were one 
story above the garden; and the terraces communicating with 
the gallery were continued into corridors, raised above the pil- 
lars which to the right and left skirted the garden below. 

Beneath, and on a level with the garden, ran the apartments 
we have already described as chiefly appropriated to Julia. 

In the gallery, then, just mentioned, Diomed received his 
guests. 

The merchant affected greatly the man of letters, and there- 
fore he also affected a passion for everything Greek; he paid 
particular attention to Glaucus. 

“You will see, my friend,” said he, with a wave of his hand, 
“that Iam a little classical here—a little Cecropian— eh ? 
The hall in ‘which we shall sup is borrowed from the Greeks, 
It is an CGicus Cyzicene. Noble Sallust, they have not, I am 
told, this sort of apartment in Rome.” 

“Oh,” replied Sallust, with a half smile, “you Pompeians 
combine all that is most eligible in Greece and in Rome; may 
you, Diomed, combine the viands as well as the architecture!” 

“You shall see— you shall see, my Sallust,” replied the 
merchant. “We have a taste at Pompeii, and we have also 
money.” 

“They are two excellent things,” replied Sallust. “ But, 
behold, the lady Julia!” 

The main difference, as I have before remarked, in the man- 
ner of life observed among the Athenians and Romans, was, 


54. THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII, 


that with the first the modest women rarely or never took 
part in entertainments ; with the latter they were the common 
ornaments of the banquet; but when they were present at the 
feast, it usually terminated at an early hour. 

Magnificently robed in white, interwoven with pearls and 
threads of gold, the handsome Julia entered the apartment. 

Scarcely had she received the salutation of the two guests, 
ere Pansa and his wife, Lepidus, Clodius, and the Roman sen- 
ator, entered almost simultaneously; then came the widow 
Fulvia; then the poet Fulvius, ike to the widow in name if 
in nothing else; the warrior from Herculaneum, accompanied 
by his umbra, next stalked in; afterwards, the less eminent 
of the guests. Ione yet tarried. 

It was the mode among the courteous ancients to flatter 
whenever it was in their power: accordingly it was a sign of 
ill-breeding to seat themselves immediately on entering the 
house of their host. After performing the salutation, which 
was usually accomplished by the same cordial shake of the 
right hand which we ourselves retain, and sometimes by the 
yet more familiar embrace, they spent several minutes in sur- 
veying the apartment, and admiring the bronzes, the pictures, 
or the furniture, with which it was adorned,—a mode very 
impolite according to our refined English notions, which place 
good breeding in indifference. We would not for the world 
express much admiration of another man’s house, for fear 
it should be thought we had never seen anything so fine 
before ! 

“A beautiful statue this of Bacchus!” said the Roman 
senator. 

“ A mere trifle!” replied Diomed. 

“ What charming paintings!” said Fulvia. 

“ Mere trifles !”’ answered the owner. 

“Exquisite candelabra!” cried the warrior. 

“Exquisite!” echoed his umbra. 

“Trifles! trifles!” reiterated the merchant. 

Meanwhile, Glaucus found himself by one of the windows 
of the gallery, which communicated with the terraces, and the 
fair Julia by his side. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 55 


“Ts it an Athenian virtue, Glaucus,” said the merchant’s 
daughter, “to shun those whom we once sought?” 

“ Fair Julia, no!” 

“Yet methinks it is one of the qualities of Glaucus.” 

“ Glaucus never shuns a friend/” repled the Greek, with 
some emphasis on the last word. 

“May Julia rank among the number of his friends ?” 

“Tt would be an honor to the emperor to find a friend in 
one so lovely.” 

“You evade my question,” returned the enamoured Julia. 
“But tell me, is it true that you admire the Neapolitan 
Tone?” 

“Does not beauty constrain our admiration ?” 

“Ah, subtle Greek, still do you fly the meaning of my 
words! But say, shall Julia be indeed your friend ?” 

“Tf she will so favor me, blessed be the gods! The day in 
which I am thus honored shall be ever marked in white.” 

“Yet even while you speak, your eye is restless; your color 
comes and goes; you move away involuntarily; you are im- 
patient to join lone.” 

For at that moment Ione had entered, and Glaucus had 
indeed betrayed the emotion noticed by the jealous beauty. 

“Can admiration to one woman make me unworthy the 
friendship of another? Sanction not so, O Julia, the libels of 
the poets on your sex!” 

“Well, you are right, or I will learn to think so. Glaucus, 
yet one moment. You are to wed Ione; is it not so?” 

“Tf the Fates permit, such is my blessed hope.” 

“ Accept, then, from me, in token of our new friendship, a 
present for your bride. Nay, it is the custom of friends, you 
know, always to present to bride and bridegroom some such 
little marks of their esteem and favoring wishes.” 

“ Julia, I cannot refuse any token of friendship from one like 
you. I will accept the gift as an omen from Fortune herself.” 

“Then, after the feast, when the guests retire, you will 
descend with me to my apartment, and receive it from my 
hands. Remember!” said Julia as she joined the wife of 
Pansa, and left Glaucus to seek Ione. 


56 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


The widow Fulvia and the spouse of the zedile were engaged 
in high and grave discussion. 

“Oh, Fulvia, I assure you that the last account from Rome 
declares that the frizzling mode of dressing the hair is growing 
antiquated; they only now wear it built up in a tower, like 
Julia’s, or arranged as a helmet, —the Galerian fashion, like 
mine, you see: it has a fine effect, I think. I assure you Ves- 
pius [Vespius was the name of the Herculaneum hero] admires 
it greatly.” 

“And nobody wears the hair like yon Neapolitan, in the 
Greek way.” 

“What, parted in front, with the knot behind? Oh, no; 
how ridiculous it is! it reminds one of the statue of Diana! 
Yet this Ione is handsome, eh?” 

“So the men say; but then she is rich: she is to marry the 
Athenian. I wish her joy. He will not be long faithful, I 
suspect ; those foreigners are very faithless.” 

“Oh, Julia,” said Fulvia, as the merchant’s daughter 
joined them; “have you seen the tiger yet ?” 

‘Noh? 

“Why, all the ladies have been to see him. He is so hand- 
some !” 

“T hope we shall find some criminal or other for him and 
the lion,” replied Julia. “ Your husband [turning to Pansa’s 
wife] is not so active as he should be in this matter.” 

“Why, really, the laws are too mild,” replied the dame of 
the helmet. “There are so few offences to which the punish- 
ment of the arena can be awarded; and then, too, the gladi- 
ators are growing effeminate! The stoutest bestiarii declare 
they are willing enough to fight a boar or a bull; but as for 
a lion or a tiger, they think the game too much in earnest.” 

“They are worthy of a mitre,” ! replied Julia, in disdain. 

“Oh, have you seen the new house of Fulvius, the dear 
poet?” said Pansa’s wife. 

“No; is it handsome ?” 

“Very! such good taste. But they say, my dear, that he 


1 Mitres were worn sometimes by men, and considered a great mark of 
effeminacy. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 5T 


has such improper pictures! He won’t show them to the 
women: how ill-bred !” 

“Those poets are always odd,” said the widow. “But he 
is an interesting man; what pretty verses he writes! We 
improve very much in poetry: it is impossible to read the old 
stuff now.” 

“T declare I am of your opinion,” returned the lady of the 
helmet. “There is so much more force and energy in the 
modern school.” 

The warrior sauntered up to the ladies. 

“Tt reconciles me to peace,” said he, “when I see such 
faces.”” 

“Oh, you heroes are ever flatterers!” returned Fulvia, 
hastening to appropriate the compliment specially to herself. 

“By this chain, which I received from the emperor’s own 
hand,” replied the warrior, playing with a short chain which 
hung round the neck like a collar, instead of descending to the 
breast, according to the fashion of the peaceful, — “by this chain 
you wrong me! Jam a blunt man; a soldier should be so.” 

“How do you find the ladies of Pompeii generally?” said 
Julia. 

“By Venus, most beautiful! They favor me a little, it is 
true, and that inclines my eyes to double their charms.” 

“We love a warrior,” said the wife of Pansa. 

“T see it: by Hercules! it is even disagreeable to be too 
celebrated in these cities. At Herculaneum they climb the 
root of my atrium to catch a glimpse of me through the com- 
pluvium; the admiration of one’s citizens is pleasant at first, 
but burdensome afterwards.” 

“True, true, O Vespius!” cried the poet, joining the group: 
“T find it so myself.” 

“You!” said the stately warrior, scanning the small form 
of the poet with ineffable disdain. “In what legion have you 
served ?” 

“You may see my spoils, my exuvie, in the forum itself,” 
returned the poet, with a significant glance at the women. “TI 
have been among the tent-companions, the contubernales, of the 
great Mantuan himself.” 


58 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


“‘T know no general from Mantua,” said the warrior, gravely. 
«“ What campaign have you served ?” 

“That of Helicon.” 

“T never heard of it.” 

“Nay, Vespius, he does but joke,” said Julia, laughing. 

“Joke! By Mars, am I a man to be joked?” 

“Yes; Mars himself was in love with the mother of jokes,” 
said the poet, alittle alarmed. “Know, then, O Vespius, that I 
am the poet Fulvius! It is I who make warriors immortal!” 

“The gods forbid!” whispered Sallust to Julia. “If Vespius 
were made immortal, what a specimen of tiresome braggadocio 
would be transmitted to posterity !” 

The soldier looked puzzled; when, to the infinite relief of 
himself and his companions, the signal for the feast was given. 

As we have already witnessed at the house of Glaucus the 
ordinary routine of a Pompeian entertainment, the reader is 
spared any second detail of the courses, and the manner in 
which they were introduced. 

Diomed, who was rather ceremonious, had appointed a no- 
menclator, or appointer of places, to each guest. 

The reader understands that the festive board was composed 
of three tables, — one at the centre, and one at each wing. It 
was only at the outer side of these tables that the guests re- 
clined ; the inner space was left untenanted, for the greater 
convenience of the waiters or ministri. The extreme corner of 
one of the wings was appropriated to Julia as the lady of the 
feast; that next her, to Diomed. At one corner of the centre 
table was placed the eedile; at the opposite corner, the Roman 
senator; these were the posts of honor. The other guests 
were arranged so that the young (gentleman or lady) should sit 
next each other, and the more advanced in years be similarly 
matched. An agreeable provision enough, but one which must 
often have offended those who wished to be thought still 
young. 

The chair of Ione was next to the couch of Glaucus.1' The 

1 In formal parties the women sat in chairs, —the men reclined. - It was 


only in the bosom of families that the same ease was granted to both sexes; 
the reason is obvious. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 59 


seats were veneered with tortoise-shell, and covered with 
quilts stuffed with feathers, and ornamented with costly em- 
broideries. ‘The modern ornaments of epergne or plateau 
were supplied by images of the gods, wrought in bronze, ivory, 
and silver. The sacred salt-cellar and the familiar Lares were 
not forgotten. Over the table and the seats a rich canopy 
was suspended from the ceiling. At each corner of the table 
were lofty candelabra, —for though it was early noon, the 
room was darkened, — while from tripods, placed in different 
parts of the room, distilled the odor of myrrh and frankin- 
cense; and upon the abacus, or sideboard, large vases and 
various ornaments of silver were ranged, much with the same 
ostentation (but with more than the same taste) that we find 
displayed at a modern feast. 

The custom of grace was invariably supplied by that of liba- 
tions to the gods; and Vesta, as queen of the household gods, 
usually received first that graceful homage. 

This ceremony being performed, the slaves showered flowers 
upon the couches and the floor, and crowned each guest with 
rosy garlands, intricately woven with ribbons, tied by the rind 
of the linden-tree, and each intermingled with the ivy and the 
amethyst, — supposed preventives against the effect of wine; 
the wreaths of the women only were exempted from these 
leaves, for it was not the fashion for them to drink wine 
in public. It was then that the president Diomed thought 
it advisable to institute a dasileus, or director of the feast, 
an important office, sometimes chosen by lot, sometimes, as 
now, by the master of the entertainment. 

Diomed was not a little puzzled as to his election. The 
invalid senator was too grave and too infirm for the proper 
fulfilment of his duty: the edile Pansa was adequate enough 
to the task ; but then, to choose the next in official rank to the 
senator, was an affront to the senator himself. While delib- 
erating between the merits of the others, he caught the mirth- 
ful glance of Sallust, and, by a sudden inspiration, named the 
jovial epicure to the rank of director, or arbiter bibendi. 

Sallust received the appointment with becoming humility. 

“T shall be a merciful king,” said he, “to those who drink 


60 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


deep; to a recusant, Minos himself shall be less inexorable. 
Beware !” | 

The slaves handed round basins of perfumed water, by 
which lavation the feast commenced: and now the table 
groaned under the initiatory course. 

The conversation, at first desultory and scattered, allowed 
Jone and Glaucus to carry on those sweet whispers which are 
worth all the eloquence in the world. Julia watched them 
with flashing eyes. 

‘“‘ How soon shall her place be mine ? ” thought she. 

But Clodius, who sat at the centre table, so as to observe 
well the countenance of Julia, guessed her pique, and re- 
solved to profit by it. He addressed her across the table in 
set phrases of gallantry ; and as he was of high birth and of a 
showy person, the vain Julia was not so much in love as to be 
insensible to his attentions. 

The slaves, in the interim, were constantly kept upon the 
alert by the vigilant Sallust, who chased one cup by another 
with a celerity which seemed as if he were resolved upon ex- 
hausting those capacious cellars which the reader may yet see 
beneath the house of Diomed. The worthy merchant began 
to repent his choice, as amphora after amphora was pierced 
and emptied. The slaves, all under the age of manhood (the 
youngest being about ten years old, —it was they who filled the 
wine ; the eldest, some five years older, mingled it with water), 
seemed to share in the zeal of Sallust ; and the face of Diomed 
began to glow as he watched the provoking complacency with 
which they seconded the exertions of the king of the feast. 

“ Pardon me, O senator!” said Sallust; “I see you flinch ; 
your purple hem cannot save you: drink!” 

“‘ By the gods!” said the senator, coughing, “my lungs are 
already on fire; you proceed with so miraculous a swiftness, 
that Phaeton himself was nothing to you. I am infirm, O 
pleasant Sallust; you must exonerate me.” 

“Not I, by Vesta! Jam an impartial monarch: drink!” 

The poor senator, compelled by the laws of the table, was 
forced to comply. Alas! every cup was bringing him nearer 
and nearer to the Stygian pool. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 61 


“Gently, gently, my king!” groaned Diomed ; “ we already 
begin to —” 

“Treason!” interrupted Sallust; “no stern Brutus here! 
no interference with royalty!” 

‘“ But our female guests — ” 

“Love a toper! Did not Ariadne dote upon Bacchus ? ” 

The feast proceeded; the guests grew more talkative and 
noisy ; the dessert or last course was already on the table; and 
the slaves bore round water with myrrh and hyssop for the 
finishing lavation. At the same time a small circular table 
that had been placed in the space opposite the guests sud- 
denly, and as by magic, seemed to open in the centre, and cast 
up a fragrant shower, sprinkling the table and the guests; 
while as it ceased the awning above them was drawn aside, 
and the guests perceived that a rope had been stretched across 
the ceiling, and that one of those nimble dancers for which 
Pompeii was so celebrated, and whose descendants add so 
charming a grace to the festivities of Astley’s or Vauxhall, 
was now treading his airy measures right over their heads. 

This apparition, removed but by a cord from one’s peri- 
cranium, and indulging the most vehement leaps, apparently 
with the intention of alighting upon that cerebral region, 
would probably be regarded with some terror by a party in 
Mayfair; but our Pompeian revellers seemed to behold the 
spectacle with delighted curiosity, and applauded in propor- 
tion as the dancer appeared with the most difficulty to miss 
falling upon the head of whatever guest he particularly 
selected to dance above. He paid the senator, indeed, the 
peculiar compliment of literally falling from the rope, and 
catching it again with his hand, just as the whole party im- 
agined the skull of the Roman was as much fractured as 
ever that of the poet whom the eagle took for a tortoise. At 
length, to the great relief of at least Ione, who had not much 
accustomed herself to this entertainment, the dancer suddenly 
paused, as a strain of music was heard from without. He 
danced again still more wildly; the air changed, the dancer 
paused again; no, it could not dissolve the charm which was 
supposed to possess him! He represented one who by a 


62 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


strange disorder is compelled to dance, and whom only a cer- 
tain air of music can cure.t At length the musician seemed to 
hit on the right tune; the dancer gave one leap, swung himself 
down from the rope, alighted on the floor, and vanished. 

One art now yielded to another; and the musicians who 
were stationed without on the terrace struck up a soft and 
mellow air, to which were sung the following words, made 
almost indistinct by the barrier between and the exceeding 
lowness of the minstrelsy : — 


FESTIVE MUSIC SHOULD BE LOW. 


I. 
Hark! through these flowers our music sends its greeting 
To your loved halls, where Psilas? shuns the day ; 
When the young god his Cretan nymph was meeting, 
He taught Pan’s rustic pipe this gliding lay: 
Soft as the dews of wine 
Shed in this banquet hour, 
The rich libation of Sound’s stream divine, 
O reverent harp, to Aphrodite pour! 


. 


II. 


Wild rings the trump o’er ranks to glory marching ; 
Music’s sublimer bursts for war are meet; 
But sweet lips murmuring under wreaths o’erarching 
Find the low whispers like their own most sweet. 
Steal, my lull’d music, steal 
Like woman’s half-heard tone, 
So that whoe’er shall hear, shall think to feel 
In thee the voice of lips that love his own. 


At the end of that song Ione’s cheek blushed more deeply 
than before, and Glaucus had contrived, under cover of the 
table, to steal her hand. 

“Tt is a pretty song,” said Fulvius, patronizingly. 

“ Ah, if you would oblige us!” murmured the wife of Pansa. 

“Do you wish Fulvius to sing?” asked the king of the 
feast, who had just called on the assembly to drink the health 
of the Roman senator, a cup to each letter of his name. 

“Can you ask?” said the matron, with a complimentary 
glance at the poet. 


1 A dance still retained in Campania. 2 Bacchus. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 63 


Sallust snapped his fingers, and whispering the slave who 
came to learn his orders, the latter disappeared, and returned 
in a few moments with a small harp in one hand and a branch 
of myrtle in the other, 

The slave approached'the poet, and with a low reverence 
presented to him the harp. 

“ Alas! I cannot play,” said the poet. 

“Then you must sing to the myrtle. It isa Greek fashion: 
Diomed loves the Greeks; I love the Greeks; you love the 
Greeks; we all love the Greeks; and between you and me this 
is not the only thing we have stolen from them. However, I 
introduce this custom, — I, the king: sing, subject, sing!” 

The poet, with a bashful smile, took the myrtle in his hands, 
and after a short prelude sang as follows, in a pleasant and 
well-tuned voice : — 


THE CORONATION OF THE LOVES. 


I. 


The merry Loves one holiday: 
Were all at gambols madly ; 
But Loves too long can seldom play 
Without behaving sadly. 
They laugh’d, they toy’d, they romp’d about, 
And then for change they all fell out. 
Fie, fie! how can they quarrel so 2 
My Lesbia —ah, for shame, love! 
Methinks ’tis scarce an hour ago 
When we did just the same, love. 


II. 


The Loves, ’tis thought, were free till then, 
They had no king or laws, dear; 
But gods, like men, should subject be, 
Say all the ancient saws, dear. 
And so our crew resolved, for quiet, 
To choose a king to curb their riot. 
A kiss: ah! what a grievous thing 
For both, methinks, ’t would be, child, 
If I should take some prudish king, 
And cease to be so free, child! 


1 Suggested by two Pompeian pictures in the Museum at Naples, which 
represented a dove and a helmet enthroned by Cupids. 


64 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


III. 


Among their toys a casque they found, — 
It was the helm of Ares; 
With horrent plumes the crest was crown’d, — 
It frightened all the Lares. 
So fine a king was never known: 
They placed the helmet on the throne. 
My girl, since Valor wins the world, 
They chose a mighty master ; 
But thy sweet flag of smiles unfurled 
Would win the world much faster ! 


IV. 


The Casque soon found the Loves too wild 
A troop for him to school them ; 
For warriors know how one such child 
Has aye contrived to fool them. 
They plagued him so, that in despair 
He took a wife the plague to share. 
If kings themselves thus find the strife 
Of earth, unshared, severe, girl, 
Why, just to halve the ills of life, 
Come, take your partner here, girl. 


Vv. 


Within that room the Bird of Love 
The whole affair had eyed then ; 
The monarch hail’d the royal dove, 
And placed her by his side then : 
What mirth amidst the Loves was seen : 
“Long live,” they cried, “our King and Queen.” 
Ah, Lesbia, would that thrones were mine, 
And crowns to deck that brow, love! 
Anda yet I know that heart of thine 
For me is throne enow, love! 


VI. 


The urchins hoped to tease the mate 
As they had teased the hero; 
But when the Dove in judgment sate 
They found her worse than Nero! 
Each look a frown, each word a law; 
The little subjects shook with awe. 
In thee I find the same deceit, — 
Too late, alas! a learner! 
For where a mien more gently sweet, 
And where a tyrant sterner ? 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 65 


This song, which greatly suited the gay and lively fancy of 
the Pompeians, was received with considerable applause, and 
the widow insisted on crowning her namesake with the very 
branch of myrtle to which he had sung. It was easily twisted 
into a garland, and the immortal Fulvius was crowned amidst 
the clapping of hands and shouts of Jo triumphe/! The song 
and the harp now circulated round the party, a new myrtle 
branch being handed about, stopping at each person who could 
be prevailed upon to sing.? 

The sun began now to decline, though the revellers, who had 
worn away several hours, perceived it not in their darkened 
chamber; and the senator, who was tired, and the warrior, 
who had to return to Herculaneum, rising to depart, gave the 
signal for the general dispersion. “Tarry yet a moment, my 
friends,” said Diomed; “if you will go so soon, you must at 
least take a share in our concluding game.” 

So saying, he motioned to one of the ministri, and whisper- 
ing him the slave went out, and presently returned with a 
small bowl containing various tablets carefully sealed, and 
apparently exactly similar. Each guest was to purchase one 
of these at the nominal price of the lowest piece of silver: and 
the sport of this lottery (which was the favorite diversion of 
Augustus, who introduced it) consisted in the inequality, and 
sometimes the incongruity, of the prizes, the nature and amount 
of which were specified within the tablets. For instance, the 
poet, with a wry face, drew one of his own poems (no physi- 
cian ever less willingly swallowed his own draught); the war- 
rior drew a case of bodkins, which gave rise to certain novel 
witticisms relative to Hercules and the distaff; the widow 
Fulvia obtained a large drinking-cup; Julia, a gentleman’s 
buckle; and Lepidus, a lady’s patch-box. The most appro- 
priate lot was drawn by the gambler Clodius, who reddened 
with anger on being presented to a set of cogged dice? A 

1 According to Plutarch (Sympos. lib. i.) it seems that the branch of myrtle 
or laurel was not carried round in order, but passed from the first person on 
one couch to the first on another, and then from the second on the one to the 
second on the other, and so on. 

2 Several cogged dice were found in Pompeii. Some of the virtues may be 
modern, but it is quite clear that all the vices are ancient. 

VOL, 11.—5 | 


66 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


certain damp was thrown upon the gayety which these various 
lots created by an accident that was considered ominous ; 
Glaucus drew the most valuable of all the prizes, —a small 
marble statue of Fortune, of Grecian workmanship: on hand- 
ing it to him the slave suffered it to drop, and it broke in 
pieces. 

A shiver went round the assembly, and each voice cried 
spontaneously on the gods to avert the omen. 

Glaucus alone, though perhaps as superstitious as the rest, 
affected to be unmoved. ‘ 

“Sweet Neapolitan,” whispered he tenderly to Ione, who 
had turned pale as the broken marble itself, “I aecept the 
omen. It signifies that in obtaining thee, Fortune can give 
no more,—she breaks her image when she blesses me with 
thine.” 

In order to divert. the impression which this incident had 
occasioned in an assembly which, considering the civilization 
of the guests, would seem miraculously superstitious if at the 
present day in a country party we did not often see a lady 
grow hypochondriacal on leaving a room last of thirteen, Sal- 
lust, now crowning his cup with flowers, gave the health of 
their host. This was followed by a similar compliment to the 
emperor; and then, with a parting cup to Mercury to send 
them pleasant slumbers, they concluded the entertainment by 
a last libation, and broke up the party. 

Carriages and litters were little used in Pompeii, partly 
owing to the extreme narrowness of the streets, partly to the 
convenient smallness of the city. Most of the guests replacing 
their sandals, which they had put off in the banquet-room, and 
induing their cloaks, left the house on foot attended by their 
slaves. 

Meanwhile, having seen Ione depart, Glaucus, turning to the 
staircase which led down to the rooms of Julia, was conducted 
by a slave to an apartment in which he found the merchant’s 
daughter already seated. 

“Glaucus,” said she, looking down, “I see that you really 
love Ione; she is indeed beautiful.” 

“Julia is charming enough to be generous,” replied the 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 67 


. Greek. “Yes, I love Ione; amidst all the youth who court 
you, may you have one worshipper as sincere.” 

“T pray the gods to grant it! See, Glaucus, these pearls 
are the present I destine to your bride: may Juno give her 
health to wear them!” ! 

So saying, she placed a case in his hand, containing a row 
of pearls of some size and price. It was so much the custom 
for persons about to be married to receive these gifts, that 
Glaucus could have little scruple in accepting the necklace, 
though the gallant and proud Athenian inly resolved to re- 
quite the gift by one of thrice its value. Julia then, stopping 
short his thanks, poured forth some wine into a small bowl. 

“You have drunk many toasts with my father,” said she, 
smiling, — “one now with me. Health and fortune to your 
bride !” 

She touched the cup with her lips and then presented it to 
Glaucus. The customary etiquette required that Glaucus 
should drain the whole contents; he accordingly did so. 
Julia, unknowing the deceit which Nydia had practised upon 
her, watched him with sparkling eyes; although the witch 
had told her that the effect might not be immediate, she yet 
sanguinely trusted to an expeditious operation in favor of her 
charms. She was disappointed when she found Glaucus 
coldly replace the cup, and converse with her in the same 
unmoved but gentle tone as before; and though she detained 
him as long as she decorously could do, no change took place 
in his manner. 

‘But to-morrow,” thought she, exultingly recovering her 
disappointment, — “ to-morrow, alas for Glaucus !” 

Alas for him, indeed ! 


68 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


CHAPTER IV. 
THE STORY HALTS FOR A MOMENT AT AN EPISODE. 


RestLEss and anxious, Apezecides consumed the day in 
wandering through the most sequestered walks in the vicinity 
of the city. The sun was slowly setting as he paused beside 
a lonely part of the Sarnus, ere yet it wound amidst the 
evidences of luxury and power. Only through openings in 
the woods and vines were caught glimpses of the white and 
gleaming city, in which was heard in the distance no din, no 
sound, nor “busiest hum of men.” Amidst the green banks 
crept the lizard and the grasshopper, and here and there in 
the brake some solitary bird burst into sudden song, as sud- 
denly stilled. There was deep calm around, but not the calm 
of night; the air still breathed of the freshness and life of 
day; the grass still moved to the stir of the insect horde; 
and on the opposite bank the graceful and white capella 
passed browsing through the herbage, and paused at the wave 
to drink. 

As Apecides stood musingly gazing upon the waters, he 
heard beside him the low bark of a dog. 

“Be still, poor friend,” said a voice at hand; “the stranger’s 
step,,varms not thy master.” The convert recognized the 
voice, and, turning, he beheld the old mysterious man whom 
he had seen in the congregation of the Nazarenes. 

The old man was sitting upon a fragment of stone covered 
with ancient mosses; beside him were his staff and scrip; at 
his feet lay a small shaggy dog, the companion in how many 
a pilgrimage perilous and strange. 

The face of the old man was as balm to the excited spirit 
of the neophyte; he approached, and craving his blessing, sat 
down beside him. 

“Thou art provided as for a journey, father,” said he: 
“wilt thou leave us yet?” 

“‘My son,” replied the old man, “the days in store for me 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 69 


on earth are few and scanty; I employ them as becomes me, 
travelling from place to place, comforting those whom God 
has gathered together in His name, and proclaiming the glory 
of His Son, as testified to His servant.” 

“Thou hast looked, they tell me, on the face of Christ ?” 

“And the face revived me from the dead. Know, young 
proselyte to the true faith, that Iam he of whom thou readest 
in the scroll of the Apostle. In the far Judea, and in the city 
of Nain, there dwelt a widow, humble of spirit and sad of 
heart, for of all the ties of life one son alone was spared to 
her; and she loved him with a melancholy love, for he was 
the likeness of the lost. And the son died. The reed on 
which she leaned was broken, the oil was dried up in the 
widow’s cruse. ‘They bore the dead upon his bier; and near 
the gate of the city, where the crowd were gathered, there 
came a silence over the sounds of woe, for the Son of God was 
passing by. The mother, who followed the bier, wept, not 
noisily, but all who looked upon her saw that her heart was 
crushed. And the Lord pitied her, and He touched the bier, 
and said, ‘I say UNTO THEE, ARISE.’ And the dead man woke 
and looked upon the face of the Lord. Oh that calm and 
solemn brow, that unutterable smile, that careworn an@sorrow- 
ful face, lighted up with a God’s benignity, —it chased away 
the shadows of the grave! lI rose, I spoke, I was living, 21d in 
my mother’s arms; yes, J am the dead revived! The people 
shouted, the funeral horns rung forth merrily: there was a 
cry, ‘God has visited His people!’ I heard them not; I felt, 
I saw — nothing, but the face of the Redeemer !” 

The old man paused, deeply moved; and the youth felt his 
blood creep and his hair stir. He was in the presence of one 
who had known the Mystery of Death! 

“Till that time,’ renewed the widow’s son, “I had been as 
other men, — thoughtless, not abandoned ; taking no heed but 
of the things of love and life; nay, I had inclined to the 
gloomy faith of the earthly Sadducee! But, raised from the 
dead, from awful and desert dreams that these lips never dare 
reveal, recalled upon earth to testify the powers of Heaven, 
once more mortal, the witness of immortality, I drew a new 


70 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


being from the grave. O faded, O lost Jerusalem! Him 
from whom came my life, I beheld adjudged to the agonized — 
and parching death! Farin the mighty crowd I saw the light 
rest and glimmer over the cross; I heard the hooting mob, I 
cried aloud, I raved, I threatened; none heeded me; I was lost 
in the whirl and the roar of thousands! But even then, in 
my agony and His own, methought the glazing eye of the Son 
of Man sought me out; His lip smiled, as when it conquered 
death; it hushed me, and I became calm. He who had defied 
the grave for another, what was the grave to Him? The sun 
shone aslant the pale and powerful features, and then died 
away! Darkness fell over the earth; how long it endured, I 
know not. A loud cry came through the gloom,—a sharp 
and bitter cry !—and all was silent. 

‘“‘But who shall tell the terrors of the night? I walked 
along the city; the earth reeled to and fro, and the houses 
trembled to their base; the living had deserted the streets, 
but not the dead: through the gloom I saw them glide, — the 
dim and ghastly shapes, in the cerements of the grave, with 
horror and woe and warning on their unmoving lips and 
lightless eyes. They swept by me, as I passed; they glared 
upon me; I had been their brother, and they bowed their heads 
in recognition; they had risen to tell the living that the dead 
can rise!” 

Again the old man paused, and when he resumed, it was in 
a calmer tone. 

“From that night I resigned all earthly thought but that of 
serving Him. A preacher and a pilgrim, I have traversed the 
remotest corners of the earth, proclaiming His Divinity and 
bringing new converts to His fold. I come as the wind, and as 
the wind depart; sowing, as the wind sows, the seeds that 
enrich the world. 

“Son, on earth we shall meet no more. Forget not this 
hour. What are the pleasures and the pomps of life? As the 
lamp shines, so life glitters for.an hour; but the soul’s light is 
the star that burns forever in the heart of illimitable space.” 

It was then that their conversation fell upon the general and 
sublime doctrines of immortality ; it soothed and elevated the 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. th 


young mind ‘of the convert, which yet clung to many of the 
damps and shadows of that cell of faith which he had so lately 
left; it was the air of heaven breathing on the prisoner released 
at last. There was a strong and marked distinction between 
the Christianity of the ol& man and that of Olinthus; that of 
the first was more soft, more gentle, more divine. The hard 
heroism of Olinthus had something in it fierce and intolerant ; 
it was necessary to the part he was destined to play; it had 
in it more of the courage of the martyr than the charity of the 
saint. It aroused, it excited, it nerved, rather than subdued 
and softened. But the whole heart of that divine old man was 
bathed in love; the smile of the Deity had burned away from 
it the leaven of earthlier and coarser passions, and left to the 
energy of the hero all the meekness of the child. 

“ And now,” said he, rising at length, as the sun’s last ray 
died in the west, “now, in the cool of twilight, I pursue my 
way towards the Imperial Rome. There yet dwell some holy 
men who like me have beheld the face of Christ; and them 
would I see before I die.” 

“But the night is chill for thine age, my father, and the way 
is long, and the robber haunts it; rest thee till to-morrow.” 

“Kind son, what is there in this scrip to tempt the robber ? 
And the Night and the Solitude!—<these make the ladder 
round which angels cluster, and beneath which my spirit can 
dream of God. Oh, none can know what the pilgrim feels 
as he walks on his holy course, nursing no fear, and dreading 
no danger, for God is with him! He hears the winds mur- 
mur glad tidings; the woods sleep in the shadow of Almighty 
wings; the stars are the Scriptures of Heaven, the tokens of 
love, and the witnesses of immortality. Night is the pilgrim’s 
day.” With these words the old man pressed Apzcides to 
his breast, and taking up his staff and scrip, the dog bounded 
eheerily before him, and with slow steps and downcast eyes 
he went his way. 

The convert stood watching his bended form till the trees 
shut the last glimpse from his view; and then, as the stars 
broke forth, he woke from the musings with a start, reminded 
of his appointment with Olinthus. 


-l 
bo 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. > 


CHAPTER V. 
THE PHILTRE,—ITS EFFECT. 


Wuen Glaucus arrived at his own home, he found Nydia 
seated under the portico of his garden. In fact, she had 
sought his house in the mere chance that he might return at 
an early hour; anxious, fearful, anticipative, she resolved 
upon seizing the earliest opportunity of availing herself of 
the love-charm, while at the same time she half hoped the 
opportunity might be deferred. 

It was then, in that fearful burning mood, her heart beating, 
her cheek. flushing, that Nydia awaited the possibility of 
Glaucus’s return before the night. He crossed the portico 
just as the first stars began to rise, and the heaven above 
had assumed its most purple robe. 

“ Ho, my child, wait you for me?” 

“Nay, I have been tending the flowers, and did but linger 
a little while to rest myself.” 

‘‘Tt has been warm,” said Glaucus, placing himself also on 
one of the seats beneath the colonnade. 

ae Verve 

“Wilt thou summon Davus? ‘The wine I have drunk heats 
me, and i long for some cooling drink.” 

Here at once, suddenly and unexpectedly, the very oppor- 
tunity that Nydia awaited presented itself; of himself, at 
his own free choice, he afforded to her that occasion. She 
breathed quick. “I will prepare for you myself,” said she, 
“the summer draught that Ione loves, —of honey and weak 
wine cooled in snow.” 

“ Thanks,” said the unconscious Glaucus. “If Ione love it, 
enough; it would be grateful were it poison.” 

Nydia frowned, and then smiled; she withdrew for a few 
moments, and returned with the cup containing the beverage. 
Glaucus took it from her hand. What would not Nydia have 
given then for one hour’s prerogative of sight, to have watched 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 73 


her hopes ripening to effect; to have seen the first dawn of 
the imagined love; to have worshipped with more than Per- 
sian adoration the rising of that sun which her credulous soul 
believed was to break upon her dreary night! Far different, 
as she stood then and there, were the thoughts, the emotions 
of the blind girl, from those of the vain Pompeian under a 
Similar suspense. In the last, what poor and frivolous pas- 
sions had made up the daring whole! What petty pique, 
what small revenge, what expectation of a paltry triumph, 
had swelled the attributes of that sentiment she dignified 
with the name of love! But in the wild heart of the Thes- 
salian all was pure, uncontrolled, unmodified passion; erring, 
unwomanly, frenzied, but debased by no elements of a more 
sordid feeling. Filled with love as with life itself, how could 
.she resist the occasion of winning love in return ? 

\. She leaned for support against the wall, and her face, before 
so flushed, was now white as snow, and with her delicate 
hands elasped convulsively together, her lips apart, her eyes 
on the ground, she waited the next words Glaucus should 
utter. 

Glaucus had raised the cup to his lips, he had already 
drained about a fourth of its contents, when his eye suddenly 
glancing upon the face of Nydia, he was so forcibly struck by 
its alteration, by its intense and painful and strange expres- 
sion, that he paused abruptly, and still holding the cup near 
his lips, exclaimed, — 

«Why, Nydia! Nydia! I say, art thou ill or in pain? 
Nay, thy ‘face speaks for thee. What ails my poor child?” 
As he spoke, he put down the cup and rose from his seat to 
approach her, when a sudden pang shot coldly to his heart, 
and was followed by a wild, confused, dizzy sensation at the 
brain. The floor seemed to glide from under him; his feet 
seemed to move on air; a mighty and unearthly gladness 
rushed upon his spirit; he felt too buoyant for the earth; he 
longed for wings, nay, it seemed in the buoyancy of his new 
existence as if he possessed them. He burst involuntarily 
into a loud and thrilling laugh. He clapped his hands, he 
bounded aloft, he was as a Pythoness inspired ; suddenly as it 


74 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


came, this preternatural transport passed, though only par- 
tially, away. He now felt his blood rushing loudly and rap- 
idly through his veins; it seemed to swell, to exult, to leap 
along, as a stream that has burst its bounds and hurries to the 
ocean. It throbbed in his ear with a mighty sound; he felt it 
mount to his brow; he felt the veins in the temples stretch 
and swell as if they could no longer contain the violent and 
increasing tide; then a kind of darkness fell over his eyes, — 
darkness, but not entire; for through the dim shade he saw 
the opposite walls glow out, and the figures painted there- 
on seemed, ghost-like, to creep and glide. What was most 
strange, he did not feel\himself <7; he did not sink or quail 
beneath the dread frenzy that was gathering over him. The 
novelty of the feelings seemed bright and vivid; he felt as if 
a younger health had been infused into his frame. He was 
gliding on to madness, and he knew it not! 

Nydia had not answered his first question, she had not been 
able to reply; his wild and fearful laugh had roused her from 
her passionate suspense: she could not see his fierce gestures, 
she could not mark his reeling and unsteady step as he paced 
unconsciously to and fro; but she heard the words, broken, 
incoherent, insane, that gushed from his lips. She became 
terrified and appalled; she hastened to him, feeling with 
her arms until she touched his knees, and then falling on 
the ground she embraced them, weeping with terror and 
excitement. 

“Oh, speak to me! speak! You donot hate me? Speak, 
speak !” 

“By the bright goddess, a beautiful land this Cyprus! Ho! 
how they fill us with wine instead of blood! Now they open 
the veins of the Faun yonder to show how the tide within 
bubbles and sparkles. Come hither, jolly old god! thou rid- 
est on a goat, eh ? What long silky. hair he has! He is worth 
all the coursers of Parthia. But a word with thee: this wine 
of thine is too strong for us mortals. Oh, beautiful! the 
boughs are at rest! the green waves of the forest have caught 
the Zephyr and drowned him! Not a breath stirs the leaves, 
and I view the Dreams sleeping with folded wings upon the 


Orage saa ly rik 
sg in 


vin ee ae 


~“ 


ra 
’ 
“he 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. T5 


motionless elm; and I look beyond, and I see a blue stream 
sparkle in the silent noon! a fountain, — a fountain springing 
aloft! Ah, my fount, thou wilt not put out the rays of my 
Grecian sun, though thou triest ever so hard with thy nimble 
and silver arms! And now, what form steals yonder through 
the boughs? She glides ike a moonbeam; she has a garland 
of oak-leaves on her head. In her hand is a vase upturned, 
~ from which she pours pink and tiny shells, and sparkling 
water. Oh, look on yon face! Man never before saw its lke. 
See! we are alone; only I and she in the wide forest. There 
is no smile upon her lips; she moves, grave and sweetly sad. 
Ha! fly! it isanymph! it is one of the wild Napeex.t Who: 
ever sees her becomes mad; fly! see, she discovers me!” 

“Oh, Glaucus! Glaucus! do you not know me? Rave not 
so wildly, or thou wilt kill me with a word!” 

A new change seemed now to operate upon the jarring and 
disordered mind of the unfortunate Athenian. He put his 
hands upon Nydia’s silken hair; he smoothed the locks, he 
looked wistfully upon her face, and then, as in the broken 
chain of thought one or two links were yet unsevered, it 
seemed that her countenance brought its associations of Ione; 
and with that remembrance his madness became yet more 
powerful, and it was swayed and tinged by passion, as he 
burst forth, — 

“JT swear by Venus, by Diana, and by Juno, that though I 
have now the world on my shoulders, as my countryman 
Hercules (ah, dull Rome! whoever was truly great was of 
Greece ; why, you would be godless if it were not for us!) I 
say, as my countryman Hercules had before me, I would let 
it fall into chaos for one smile from Ione. Ah, Beautiful, 
Adored,” he added, in a voice inexpressibly fond and plaintive, 
“thou lovest me not. Thou art unkind tome. The Egyptian 
hath belied me to thee; thou knowest not what hours I have 
spent beneath thy casement; thou knowest not how I have 
outwatched the stars, thinking thou, my sun, wouldst rise at 
last: and thou lovest me not, thou forsakest me! Oh, do - 
not leave me now! I feel that my lfe will not be long; let 


1 Presiding over hills and woods. 


76 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


me gaze on thee at least unto the last. I am of the bright 
land of thy fathers ; I have trod the heights of Phyle; I have 
gathered the hyacinth and rose amidst the olive-groves of 
Ilissus. Zhow shouldst not desert me, for thy fathers were 
brothers to my own. And they say this land is lovely, and 
these climes serene, but I will bear thee with me. Ho! dark 
form, why risest thou like a cloud between me and mine ? 
Death sits calmly dread upon thy brow; on thy lip is the 
smile that slays: thy name is Orcus, but on earth men call 
thee Arbaces. See, I know thee! fly, dim shadow, thy spells 
avail not!” \ eer RLY 

“Glaucus! Glaucus!” murmured Nydia, releasing her hold 
and falling, beneath the excitement of her dismay, remorse, 
and anguish, insensible on the floor. 

“Who calls?” said he, in a loud voice. “Tone, it is she! 
They have borne her off ; we will save her: where is my stilus ? 
Ha, I have it! I come, Ione, to thy rescue! I come! I 
come !” 

So saying, the Athenian with one bound passed the portico, 
he traversed the house, and rushed with swift but vacillating 
steps, and muttering audibly to himself, down the starlit 
streets. ‘The direful potion burnt like fire in his veins, for its 
effect was made, perhaps, still more sudden from the wine he 
had drunk previously. Used to the excesses of nocturnal 
revellers, the citizens, with smiles and winks, gave way to his 
reeling steps; they naturally imagined him under the in- 
fluence of the Bromian god, not vainly worshipped at Pom- 
peil; but they who looked twice upon his face started in a 
nameless fear, and the smile withered from their lips. He 
passed the more populous streets; and, pursuing mechani- 
cally the way to Ione’s house, he traversed a more deserted 
quarter, and entered now the lonely grove of Cybele, in which 
Apzcides had held his interview with Olinthus. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. TT 


CHAPTER VI. 


A REUNION OF DIFFERENT ACTORS. —STREAMS THAT FLOWED 
APPARENTLY APART RUSH INTO ONE GULF. 


IMPATIENT to learn whether the fell drug had yet been 
administered by Julia to his hated rival, and with what effect, 
Arbaces resolved, as the evening came on, to seek her house 
and satisfy his suspense. It was customary, as I have before 
said, for men at that time to carry abroad with them the tab- 
lets and the stilus attached to their girdle; and with the 
girdle they were put off when at home. In fact, under the 
appearance of a literary instrument, the Romans carried about 
with them in that same stilus a very sharp and formidable 
weapon. It was with his stilus? that Cassius stabbed Cesar 
in the senate-house. Taking, then, his girdle and his cloak, 
Arbaces left his house supporting his steps, which were still 
somewhat feeble (though hope and vengeance had conspired 
greatly with his own medical science, which was profound, to 
restore his natural strength), by his long staff: Arbaces took 
his way to the villa of Diomed. 

And beautiful is the moonlight of the south! In those 
climes the night so quickly glides into the day, that twilight 
scarcely makes a bridge between them. One moment of 
darker purple in the sky, of a thousand rose-hues in the 
water, of, shade half victorious over light, and then burst 
forth at once the countless stars: the moon is up; night has 
resumed her reign! 

Brightly then, and softly bright, fell the moonbeams over 
the antique grove consecrated to Cybele; the stately trees, 
whose date went beyond tradition, cast their long shadows 
over the soil, while through the openings in their boughs the 
stars shone, still and frequent. The whiteness of the small 
sacellum in the centre of the grove, amidst the dark foliage, 
had in it something abrupt and startling; it recalled at once 


1 From the stilas may be derived the stiletto of the Italians. 


78 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 


the purpose to which the wood was consecrated, — its holiness 
and solemnity. 

With a swift and stealthy pace, Calenus, gliding under the 
shade of the trees, reached the chapel, and gently putting 
back the boughs that completely closed around its rear, set- 
tled himself in his concealment,—a concealment so com- 
plete, what with the fane in front and the trees behind, that 
no unsuspicious passenger could possibly have detected him. 
Again, all was apparently solitary in the grove; afar off you 
heard faintly the voices of some noisy revellers, or the music 
that played ‘cheerily to the groups that then, as now, in those 
climates, during the nights of summer, lingered in the streets, 
and enjoyed, in the fresh air and the liquid moonlight, a 
milder day. 

From the height on which the grove was placed, you saw 
through the intervals of the trees the broad and purple sea 
rippling in the distance, the white villas of Stabiz in the 
curving shore, and the dim Lectiarian hills mingling with the 
delicious sky. Presently the tall figure of Arbaces, on his 
way to the house of Diomed, entered the extreme end of 
the grove; and at the same instant Apzcides, also bound 
to his appointment with Olinthus, crossed the Egyptian’s 
path. 

“ Hem! Apzcides,” said Arbaces, recognizing the priest at 
a glance; “when last we met you were myfoe. I have wished 
since then to see you, for I would have iets still my pupil and 
my friend.” 

Apecides started at the voice of the Egyptian, and halting 
abruptly, gazed upon him with a countenance full of contend- 
ing, bitter, and scornful emotions. 

“Villain and impostor!” said he at length; “thou hast 
recovered then from the jaws of the grave! But think not 
again to weave around me thy guilty meshes. etiarius, I am 
armed against thee!” 

“Hush !” said Arbaces, in a very low voice; but his prido, 
which in that descendant of kings was great, betrayed the 
wound it received from the insulting epithets of the priest in 
the quiver of his lip and the flush of his tawny brow. “ Hush! 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 79 


more low! thou mayest be overheard, and if other ears than 
mine had drunk those sounds, why — ” 

“Dost thou threaten? What if the whole city had heard 
meth 

“The manes of my gncestors would not have suffered me to 
forgive thee. But hold, and hear me. Thou art enraged that 
I would have offered violence to thy sister. Nay, peace, peace, 
but one instant, I pray thee. Thou art right; it was the frenzy 
of passion and of jealousy. I have repented bitterly of my 
madness. Forgive me; I, who never implored pardon of liv- 
ing man, beseech thee now to forgive me. Nay, I will atone 
the insult; I ask thy sister in marriage: start not, consider, — 
what is the alliance of yon holiday Greek compared to mine ? 
Wealth unbounded, birth that in its far antiquity leaves your 
Greek and Roman names the things of yesterday, science — 
but that thou knowest! Give me thy sister, and my whole 
life shall atone a moment’s error.” 

“Hgyptian, were even I to consent, my sister loathes the 
very air thou breathest; but I have my own wrongs to forgive. 
I may pardon thee that thou hast made me a tool to thy 
deceits, but never that. thou hast seduced me to become the 
abettor of thy vices, —a polluted and a perjured man. ‘Trem- 
ble! Even now I prepare the hour in which thou and thy 
false gods shall be unveiled. Thy lewd and Circean life shall 
be dragged to day, thy mumming oracles disclosed, the fane 
of the idol Isis shall be a byword and a scorn, the name of 
Arbaces a mark for the hisses of execration! Tremble!” 

The flush on the Egyptian’s brow was succeeded by a livid 
paleness. He looked behind, before, around, to feel assured 
that none was by; and then he fixed his dark and dilating eye 
on the priest, with such a gaze of wrath and menace, that one 
perhaps less supported than Apeecides by the fervent daring 
of a divine zeal, could not have faced with unflinching look that 
lowering aspect. As it was, however, the young convert met it 
unmoved, and returned it with an eye of proud defiance. 

“ Apecides,” said the Egyptian, in a tremulous and inward 
tone, “beware! What is it thou wouldst meditate? Speakest 
thou — reflect, pause before thou repliest —from the hasty 


80 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


influences of wrath, as yet setae no settled purpose, or 
from some fixed design?” 

“JT speak from the inspiration of the True God, whose ser- 
vant I now am,” answered the Christian, boldly; “and in the 
knowledge that by His grace human courage has already fixed 
the date of thy hypocrisy and thy demon’s worship; ere thrice 
the sun has dawned, thou wilt know all! Dark sorcerer, trem- 
ble, and farewell!” 

All the fierce and lurid passions which he inherited from 
his nation and his clime, at all times but ill concealed beneath 
the blandness of craft and the coldness of philosophy, were 
released in the breast-of the Egyptian. Rapidly one thought 
chased another; he saw before him an obstinate barrier to 
even a lawful alliance with Ione,—the fellow-champion of 
Glaucus in the struggle which had baffled his designs, the 
reviler of his name, the threatened desecrator of the goddess 
he served while he disbelieved, the avowed and approaching 
revealer of his own impostures and vices. His love, his re- 
pute, nay, his very life, might be in danger,—the day and 
hour seemed even to have been fixed for some design against 
him. He knew by the words of the convert that Apecides 
had adopted the Christian faith; he knew the indomitable 
zeal which led on the proselytes of that creed. Such was 
his enemy; he grasped his stilus,— that enemy was in his 
power. They were now before the chapel; one hasty glance 
once more he cast around; he saw none near, — silence and 
solitude alike tempted him. 

“Die, then, in thy rashness!” he muttered; “away, obstacle 
to my rushing fates!” 

And just as the young Christian had turned to depart, Arbaces 
raised his hand high over the left shoulder of Apzcides, and 
plunged his sharp weapon twice into his breast. 

Apeecides fell to the ground pierced to the heart; he fell 
mute, without even a groan, at the very base of the sacred 
chapel. 

Arbaces gazed upon him for a moment with the fierce animal 
joy of conquest overafoe. But presently the full sense of the 
danger to which he was exposed flashed upon him; he wiped 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 81 


his weapon carefully in the long grass, and with the very gar- 
ments of his victim; drew his cloak round him, and was about 
to depart, when he saw coming up the path right before him 
the figure of a young man, whose steps reeled and vacillated 
strangely as he advanceé: The quiet moonlight streamed full 
upon his face, which seemed, by the whitening ray, colorless as 
marble. The Egyptian recognized the face and form of Glau- 
cus. The unfortunate and benighted Greek was chanting a 
disconnected and mad song, composed from snatches of hymns 
and. sacred odes, all jarringly woven together. 

“Ha!” thought the Egyptian, instantaneously divining his 
state and its terrible cause; “so, then, the hell-draught works, 
and destiny hath sent thee hither to crush two of my foes at 
once.” 

Quickly, even ere this thought occurred to him, he had 
withdrawn on one side of the chapel, and concealed himself 
amongst the boughs; from that lurking-place he watched, as a 
tiger in his lair, the advance of his second victim. He noted 
the wandering and restless fire in the bright and beautiful 
eyes of the Athenian; the convulsions that distorted his 
statue-like features and writhed his hueless lip. He saw 
that the Greek was utterly deprived of reason. Nevertheless, 
as Glaucus came up to the dead body of Apecides, from which 
the dark red stream flowed slowly over the grass, so strange 
and ghastly a spectacle could not fail to arrest him, benighted 
and erring as was his glimmering sense. He paused, placed his 
hand to his brow, as if to collect himself, and then saying, — 

“ What ho! Endymion, sleepest thou:so soundly? What 
has the moon said to thee? Thou makest me jealous; it is 
time to wake,” he stooped down, with the intention of lifting 
up the body. 

Forgetting, feeling not, his own debility, the Egyptian sprung 
from his hiding-place, and, as the Greek bent, struck him 
forcibly to the ground, over the very body of the Christian; 
then, raising his powerful voice to its loudest pitch, he 
shouted, — 

“Ho, citizens! ho! help me; run hither, hither! A mur- 
der, a murder before your very fane! Help, or the murderer 

VOL. 11. —6 


82 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 


escapes!” As he spoke, he placed his foot on the breast of 
Glaucus: an idle and superfluous precaution; for the potion 
operating with the fall, the Greek lay there motionless and 
insensible, save that now and then his lips gave vent to some 
vague and raving sounds. 

As he there stood awaiting the coming of those his voice 
still continued to summon, perhaps some remorse, some com- 
punctious visitings — for, despite his crimes, he was human — 
haunted the breast of the Egyptian; the defenceless state 
of Glaucus, his wandering words, his shattered reason, smote 
him even more than the death of Apzcides, and he said half 
audibly to himself, — 

‘Poor clay, poor human reason; where is the soul now? I 
could spare thee, O my rival—rival never more. But destiny 
must be obeyed; my safety demands thy sacrifice”’ With 
that, as if to drown compunction, he shouted yet more loudly ; 
and drawing from the girdle of Glaucus the stilus it contained, 
he steeped it in the blood of the murdered man, and laid it 
beside the corpse. 

And now, fast and breathless, several of the citizens came 
thronging to the place, some with torches, which the moon 
rendered unnecessary, but which flared red and tremulously 
against the darkness of the trees: they surrounded the spot. 

“ Lift up yon corpse,” said the Egyptian, “and guard well 
the murderer.” 

They raised the body, and great was their horror and sacred 
indignation to discover in that lifeless clay a priest of the 
adored and venerable Isis; but still greater, perhaps, was their 
surprise when they found the accused in the brilliant and 
admired Athenian. , 

“Glaucus!” cried the bystanders, with one accord; “is it 
even credible ?” 

‘‘T would sooner,” whispered one man to his neighbor, 
“believe it to be the Egyptian himself.” 

Here a centurion thrust himself into the gathering crowd, 
with an air of authority. 

“How! blood spilt! who the murderer ?” 

The bystanders pointed to Glaucus. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 83 


“He! By Mars, he has rather the air of being the victim! 
Who accuses him ?” 

“J,” said Arbaces, drawing himself up haughtily; and the 
jewels which adorned his dress flashing in the eyes of the sol- 
dier, instantly convinced.that worthy warrior of the witness’s 
respectability. 

“ Pardon me: your name ?” said he. 

“ Arbaces; itis well known, methinks,in Pompeii. Passing 
through the grove, I beheld before me the Greek and the priest 
in earnest conversation. I was struck by the reeling motions 
of the first, his violent gestures, and the loudness of his voice; 
he seemed, to me either drunk or mad. Suddenly I saw him 
raise his stilus; I darted forward, too late to arrest the blow. 
He had twice stabbed his victim, and was bending over him, 
when, in my horror and indignation, I struck the murderer to 
the ground. He fell without a struggle, which makes me yet 
more suspect that he was not altogether in his senses when 
the crime was perpetrated; for, recently recovered from a 
severe illness, my blow was comparatively feeble, and the 
- frame of Glaucus, as you see, is strong and youthful.” 

“His eyes are open now; his lips move,” said the soldier. 
“Speak, prisoner: what sayest thou to the charge ?” 

“The charge —ha, ha! Why, it was merrily done; when 
the old hag set her serpent at me, and Hecate stood by laugh- 
ing from ear to ear, what could Ido? ButIam ill; I faint; 
the serpent’s fiery tongue hath bitten me. Bear me to bed, 
and send for your physician; old Aisculapius himself will 
attend me if you let him know that Iam Greek. Oh, mercy, 
mercy, I burn! marrow and brain, I burn!” 

And, with a thrilling and fierce groan, the Athenian fell back 
in the arms of the bystanders. 

“He raves,” said the officer, compassionately, “and in his 
delirium he has struck the priest. Hath any one present seen 
him to-day ?” 

“J,” said one of the spectators, “beheld him in the morning. 
He passed my shop and accosted me. He seemed well and 
sane as the stoutest of us.” 

“ And I saw him half an hour ago,” said another, “ passing 


84. THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 


up the streets muttering to himself with strange gestures, and 
just as the Egyptian has described.” 

“ A corroboration of the witness! It must be too true. He 
must at all events to the pretor: a pity, so young and so rich! 
But the crime is dreadful: a priest of Isis, in his very robes, 
too, and at the base itself of our most ancient chapel!” 

At these words the crowd were reminded more forcibly, 
than in their excitement and curiosity they had yet been, of 
the heinousness of the sacrilege. They shuddered in pious 
horror. 

“No wonder the earth has quaked,” said one, “when it held 
such a monster!” 

“ Away with him to prison, —away!” cried they all. 

And one solitary voice was heard shrilly and joyously above 
the rest, — 

“The beasts will not want a gladiator now, 


‘Ho, ho! for the merry, merry show!’” 


It was the voice of the young woman whose conversation 
with Medon has been repeated. 

“True, true, it chances in season for the games!” cried 
several; and at that thought all pity for the accused seemed 
vanished. His youth, his beauty, but fitted him better for the 
purpose of the arena. 

“Bring hither some planks —or, if at hand, a litter —to 
bear the dead,” said Arbaces: “a priest of Isis ought scarcely 
to be carried to his temple by vulgar hands, like a butchered 
gladiator.” 

At this the bystanders reverently laid the corpse of Apzecides 
on the ground, with the face upwards; and some of them went 
in search of some contrivance to bear the body, untouched by 
the profane. 

It was just at that time that the crowd gave way to right 
and left as a sturdy form forced itself through, and Olinthus 
the Christian stood immediately confronting the Egyptian. 
But his eyes at first only rested with inexpressible grief and 
horror on that gory side and upturned face on which the agony 
of violent death yet lingered. 


3 he 
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" 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 85 


“Murdered!” he said. “Is it thy zeal that has brought 
thee to this? Have they detected thy noble purpose, and by 
death prevented their own shame ?” 

He turned his head abruptly, and his eyes fell full on the 
solemn features of the Egyptian. 

As he looked, you might see in his face, and even the slight 
shiver of his frame, the repugnance and aversion which the 
Christian felt for one whom he knew to be so dangerous and so 
criminal. It was indeed the gaze of the bird upon the basilisk, 
so silent was it and so prolonged. But shaking off the sudden 
chill that had crept over him, Olinthus extended his right arm 
towards Arbaces, and said, in a deep and loud voice, — 

“Murder hath been done upon this corpse! Where is the 
murderer? Stand forth, Egyptian! For, as the Lord liveth, 
I believe thou art the man!” | 

An anxious and perturbed change might for one moment be 
detected on the dusky features of Arbaces; but it gave way to 
the frowning expression of indignation and scorn, as, awed 
and arrested by the suddenness and vehemence of the charge, 
the spectators pressed nearer and nearer upon the two more 
prominent actors. 

“7 know,” said Arbaces, proudly, “who is my accuser, and 
I guess wherefore he thus arraigns me. Men and citizens, 
know this man for the most bitter of the Nazarenes, if that 
or Christians be their proper name! What marvel that in 
his malignity he dares accuse even an Egyptian of the murder 
of a priest of Egypt!” 

“T know him! I know the dog!” shouted several voices. 
“Tt is Olinthus the Christian, or rather the Atheist; he de- 
nies the gods!” 

“Peace, brethren,” said Olinthus, with dignity, “and hear 
me! This murdered priest of Isis before his death embraced 
the Christian faith ; he revealed to me the dark sins, the sor- 
ceries of yon Egyptian, —the mummeries and delusions of the 
fane of Isis. He was about to declare them publicly. He, a 
stranger, unoffending, without enemies, — who should shed his 
blood but one of those who feared his witness ? Who might 
fear that testimony the most? Arbaces the Egyptian !” 


86 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“You hear him!” said Arbaces; “you hear him! he blas- 
phemes! Ask him if he believe in Isis.” 

“Do I believe in an evil demon?” returned Olinthus, 
boldly. 

A groan and shudder passed through the assembly. Nothing 
daunted, for prepared at every time for peril, and in the present 
excitement losing all prudence, the Christian continued, — 

“ Back, idolaters! this clay is not for your vain and pollut- 
ing rites; it is to us—to the followers of Christ —that the - 
last offices due to a Christian belong. I claim this dust in : 
the name of the great Creator who has recalled the spirit!” 

With so solemn and commanding a voice and aspect the 
Christian spoke these words, that even the crowd forbore to— 
utter aloud the execration of fear and hatred which in their 
hearts they conceived. And never, perhaps, since Lucifer 
and the Archangel contended for the body of the mighty 
Lawgiver, was there a more striking subject for the painter’s 
genius than that scene exhibited: the dark trees, the stately 
fane, the moon full on the corpse of the deceased, the torches 
tossing wildly to and fro in the rear, the various faces of the 
motley audience, the insensible form of the Athenian, sup- 
ported, in the distance, and in the foreground, and above all, 
the forms of Arbaces and the Christian, —the first drawn to 
its full height, far taller than the herd around, his arms 
folded, his brow knit, his eyes fixed, his lip slightly curled in 
defiance and disdain; the last bearing, on a brow worn and 
furrowed, the majesty of an equal command, the features 
stern yet frank, the aspect bold yet open, the quiet dignity 
of the whole form impressed with an ineffable earnestness, 
hushed, as it were, in a solemn sympathy with the awe he 
himself had created, his left hand pointing to the corpse, 
his right hand raised to heaven. 

The centurion pressed forward again. 

“Tn the first place, hast thou, Olinthus, or whatever be thy 
name, any proof of the charge thou hast made against Arbaces, 
beyond thy vague suspicions ? ” 

Olinthus remained silent; the Egyptian laughed con- 
temptuously. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 87 


“ Dost thou claim the body of a priest of Isis as one of the 
Nazarine or Christian sect ? ” 

(£4 I do. 9) 

“Swear then by yon fane, yon statue of Cybele, by yon most 
ancient sacellum in Poripeii, that the dead man embraced 
your faith!” 

“Vain man, I disown your rane I abhor your temples! 
How can I swear by Cybele then ? ” 

“ Away, away with the Atheist! away! the earth will 
swallow us if we suffer these blasphemers in a sacred grove, 
—away with him to death!” 

“ To the beasts /’’ added a female voice in the centre of 
the crowd; “we shall have one apiece now for the lion and 
tiger |” 

“Tf, O Nazarene, thou disbelievest in Cybele, which of our 
gods dost thou own?” resumed the soldier, unmoved by the 
cries around. 

“¢ None!” 

“ Hark to him! hark!” cried the crowd. 

“Q vain and blind!” continued the Christian, raising his 
voice, “can you believe in images of wood and stone? Do you 
imagine that they have eyes to see, or ears to hear, or hands te 
help ye? Is yon mute thing carved by man’s art a goddess ! 
hath it made mankind? Alas! by mankind was it made. Lo! 
convince yourselves of its nothingness, — of your folly.” 

And as he spoke he strode across to the fane, and ere any of 
the bystanders were aware of his purpose, he, in his compas- 
sion or his zeal, struck the statue of wood from its pedestal. 

“See!” cried he, “your goddess cannot avenge herself. Is 
this a thing to worship ? ” 

Further words were denied to him: so gross and daring a 
sacrilege —of one, too, of the most sacred of their places of 
worship — filled even the most lukewarm with rage and horror. 
With one accord the crowd rushed upon him, seized, and but 
for the interference of the centurion, they would have torn 
him to pieces. 

“ Peace!” said the soldier, authoritatively ; — “refer we this 
insolent blasphemer to the proper tribunal: time has been 


88 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


already wasted. Bear we both the culprits to the magistrates ; 
place the body of the priest on the litter: carry it to his own 
home.” 

At this moment a priest of Isis stepped forward. “TI claim 
these remains, according to the custom of the priesthood.” 

“The flamen be obeyed,” said the centurion. “How is the 
murderer ? ” 

‘“‘Insensible or asleep.” 

“Were his crime less, I could pity him. On!” 

Arbaces, as he turned, met the eye of that priest of Isis, — 


it was Calenus; and something there was in that glance, , 


so significant and sinister, that the Egyptian muttered to 
himself, — 

“Could he have witnessed the deed ? ” 

A girl darted from the crowd, and gazed hard on the face of 
Olinthus. “by Jupiter, a stout knave! I say, we shall have a 
man for the tiger now ; one for each beast !” 

“Ho!” shouted the mob; “a man for the lion, and another 
for the tiger! Whatluck! Io Pean!” 


CHAPTER VII. 


IN WHICH THE READER LEARNS THE CONDITION OF GLAUCUS. 
— FRIENDSHIP TESTED. — ENMITY SOFTENED. — LOVE THE 
SAME, — BECAUSE THE ONE LOVING IS BLIND. 


THe night was somewhat advanced, and the gay lounging- 
places of the Pompeians were still crowded. You might ob- 
serve in the countenances of the various idlers a more earnest 
expression than usual. They talked in large knots or groups, 
as if they sought by numbers to divide the half-painful, half- 
pleasurable anxiety which belonged to the subject on which 
they conversed : it was a subject of life and death. 

A young man passed briskly by the graceful portico of the 
Temple of Fortune, —so briskly, indeed, that he came with no 
slight force full against the rotund and comely form of that 


} 


KE 


x 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 89 


respectable citizen Diomed, who was retiring homeward to his 
suburban villa. 

“Holloa!” groaned the merchant, recovering with some 
difficulty his equilibrium; “have you no eyes, or do you 
think I have no feeling? By Jupiter! you have well-nigh 
driven out the divine particle; such another shock, and my 
soul will be in Hades!” 

*“ Ah, Diomed! is it you? Forgive my inadvertence. I was 
absorbed in thinking of the reverses of life. Our poor friend 
Glaucus, eh! who could have guessed it ?” 

“Well, but tell me, Clodius, is he really to be tried by the 
senate ? ” 

“Yes; they say the crime is of so extraordinary a nature 
that the senate itself must adjudge it; and so the lictors are 
to induct him ? formally.” 

“ He has been accused publicly, then? ” 

“To be sure; where have you been, not to hear that ? ” 

“Why, I have only just returned from Neapolis, whither I 
went on business the very morning after his crime: so shock- 
ing, and at my house the same night that it happened!” 

“ There is no doubt of his guilt,” said Clodius, shrugging his 
shoulders; “and as these crimes take precedence of all little 
undignified peccadilloes, they will hasten to finish the sentence 
previous to the games.” 

“The games! Good gods!” replied Diomed, with a slight 
shudder; “can they adjudge him to the beasts, so young, 
so rich?” 

“True; but then he is a Greek. Had he been a Roman, it 
would have been a thousand pities. These foreigners can be 
borne with in their prosperity ; but in adversity we must not 
forget that they are in reality slaves. However, we of the 
upper classes are always tender-hearted, and he would cer- 
tainly get off tolerably well if he were left to us; for, between 
ourselves, what is a paltry priest of Isis; what Isis herself? 
But the common people are superstitious; they clamor for 
the blood of the sacrilegious one. It is dangerous not to give 
way to public opinion.” 

1 Plin. Ep. ii. 11, 12; v. 4, 13. 


90 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


¢¢ And the blasphemer, — the Christian, or Nazarene, or what« 
ever else he be called ?” 

“Oh, poor dog! if he will sacrifice to Cybele or Isis, he will 
be pardoned; if not, the tiger has him. At least, so I sup- 
pose; but the trial will decide. We talk while the urn is 
still empty. And the Greek may yet escape the deadly @! 
of his own alphabet. But enough of this gloomy subject. 
How is the fair Julia?” 

“ Well, I fancy.” : aeins 

“Commend me to her. But hark! the door yonder creaks 
on its hinges; it is the house of the pretor. “Who comes 
forth? By Pollux, it is the Egyptian! What can he want 
with our official friend ? ” 

“Some conference touching the murder, doubtless,” replied 
Diomed; “but what was supposed to be the inducement 
to the crime? Glaucus was to have married the priest’s 
sister.” 

“Yes; some say Apecides refused the alliance. It might 
have been a sudden quarrel. Glaucus was evidently drunk ; 
nay, so much so as to have been quite insensible when taken 
up, and I hear is still delirious; whether with wine, terror, 
remorse, the Furies, or the Bacchanals, I cannot say.” 

‘Poor fellow! he has good counsel ?” 

“The best, — Caius Pollio, an eloquent fellow enough. Pol- 
lio has been hiring all the poor gentlemen and well-born 
spendthrifts of Pompeii to dress shabbily and sneak about, 
swearing their friendship to Glaucus (who would not have 
spoken to them to be made emperor! I will do him justice, 
he was a gentleman in his choice of acquaintance), and trying 
to melt the stony citizens into pity. But it will not do; Isis 
is mighty popular just at this moment.” 

“ And, by the bye, I have some merchandise at Alexandria. 
Yes, Isis ought to be protected.” 

“True; so farewell, old gentleman: we shall meet soon; if 
not, we must have a friendly bet at the Amphitheatre. All 
my calculations are confounded by this cursed misfortune of 


AZ 


1 @, the initial of @dvaros (death), the condemning letter of the Greeks, as 
C was of the Romans. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 91 


Glaucus! He had bet on Lydon the gladiator; I must make 
up my tablets elsewhere. Vale/” 

Leaving the less active Diomed to regain his villa, Clodius 
strode on, humming a Greek air, and perfuming the night 
with the odors that steamed from his atic garments and 
flowing locks. 

“Tf,” thought he, “ Glaucus feed the lion, Julia will no longer 
have a person to love better than me; she will certainly dote 
on me, and so, I suppose, | must marry. By the gods! the 
twelve lines begin to fail: men look suspiciously at my hand 
when it rattles the dice. That infernal Sallust insinuates 
cheating; and if it be discovered that the ivory is cogged, 
why, farewell to the merry supper and the perfumed billet; 
Clodius is undone! Better marry, then, while I may, renounce 
gaming, and push my fortune (or rather the gentle Julia’s) 
at the imperial court.” 

Thus muttering the schemes of his ambition, if by that — 
high name the projects of Clodius may be called, the gamester 
found himself suddenly accosted; he turned and beheld the 
dark brow of Arbaces. 

“Hail, noble Clodius! pardon my interruption, and inform 
me, I pray you, which is the house of Sallust.” 

“Tt is but a few yards hence, wise Arbaces. But does 
Sallust entertain to-night ?” 

“T know not,” answered the Egyptian; “nor am I, perhaps, 
one of those whom he would seek as a boon companion. But 
thou knowest that his house holds the person of Glaucus the 
murderer.” 

“Ay; he, good-hearted epicure, believes in the Greek’s in- 
nocence! You remind me that he has become his surety, and 
therefore, till the trial, is responsible for his appearance.? 
Well, Sallust’s house is better than a prison, especially that 
wretched hole in the forum. But for what can you seek 
Glaucus ?” 

“Why, noble Clodius, if we could save him from execution 
it would be well. The condemnation of the rich is a blow 


1 Tf a criminal could obtain surety (called vades in capital offences), he was 
not compelled to lie in prison till after sentence. 


92 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 


upon society itself. I should like to confer with him, — for I 
hear he has recovered his senses, — and ascertain the motives 
of his crime; they may be so extenuating as to plead in his 
defence.” 

“You are benevolent, Arbaces.” 

‘Benevolence is the duty of one who aspires to wisdom,” 
replied the Egyptian, modestly. “Which way lies Sallust’s 
mansion ?” 

“T will show you,” said Clodius, “if you will suffer me to 
accompany you a few steps. But pray, what has become of 
the poor girl who was to have wed the Athenian, — the sister 
of the murdered priest ‘ Bat: 

“‘ Alas! well-nigh insane. Sometimes she utters impreca- 
tions on the murderer, then suddenly stops short, then cries, 
‘But why curse? Ob, my brother! Glaucus was not thy 
murderer; never will I believe it!’ Then she begins again, 
and again stops short and mutters awfully to herself, ‘ Yet if 
it were indeed he ?’” 

“ Unfortunate Ione!” 

“But it is well for her that those solemn cares to the dead 
which religion enjoins have hitherto greatly absorbed her 
attention from Glaucus and herself; and in the dimness of 
her senses she scarcely seems aware that Glaucus is appre- 
hended and on the eve of trial. When the funeral rites due 
to Apzcides are performed, her apprehensions will return; 
and then I fear me much that her friends will be revolted 
by seeing her run to succor and aid the murderer of her 
brother !” 

“Such scandal should be prevented.” 

“T trust I have taken precautions to that effect. Iam her 
lawful guardian, and have just succeeded in obtaining per- 
mission to escort her, after the funeral of Apecides, to my 
own house; there, please the gods, she will be secure.” 

“ You have done well, sage Arbaces. And now yonder is 
the house of Sallust. The gods keep you! Yet hark you, 
Arbaces, why so gloomy and unsocial? Men say you can be 
gay; why not let me initiate you into the pleasures of Pom. 
peii? I flatter myself no one knows them better.” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 93 


“JT thank you, noble Clodius: under your auspices I might 
venture, I think, to wear the philyra; but at my age I should 
be an awkward pupil.” 

“Oh, never fear; I have made converts of fellows of 
seventy. The rich, too,“are never old.” 

“You flatter me. At some future time I will remind you 
of your promise.” 

“You may command Marcus Clodius at all times; and so 
vale!” 

“Now,” said the Egyptian, soliloquizing, “I am not wan- 
tonly a man of blood; I would willingly save this Greek, if, 
by confessing the crime, he will lose himself forever to Ione, 
and forever free me from the chance of discovery; and I can 
save him by persuading Julia to own the philtre, which will 
be held his excuse. But if he do not confess the crime, why, 
Julia must be shamed from the confession, and he must die, 
—die, lest he prove my rival with the living,—die that he 
may be my proxy with the dead! Will he confess? Can he 
not be persuaded that in his delirium he struck the blow? 
To me it would give far greater safety than even his death. 
Hem! we must hazard the experiment.” 

Sweeping along the narrow street, Arbaces now approached 
the house of Sallust, when he beheld a dark form wrapped in 
a cloak, and stretched at length across the threshold of the 
door. 

So still lay the figure and so dim was its outline, that any 
other than Arbaces might have felt a superstitious fear lest 
he beheld one of those grim lemures, who, above all other 
spots, haunted the threshold of the homes they formerly 
possessed. But not for Arbaces were such dreams. 

“Rise!” said he, touching the figure with his foot; “thou 
obstructest the way !” 

“ Ha! who art thou?” cried the form, in a sharp tone; and 
as she raised herself from the ground, the starlight fell full on 
the pale face and fixed but sightless eyes of Nydia the Thes- 
salian. ‘ Who art thou? I know the burden of thy voice.” 

“Blind girl, what dost thon here at this late hour? Fie! 
is this seeming thy sex or years? Home, girl!” 


94 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“T know thee,” said Nydia, in a low voice; “thou art Ar- 
baces the Egyptian.” ‘Then, as if inspired by some sudden im- 
pulse, she flung herself at his feet, and clasping his knees ex- 
claimed, in a wild and passionate tone, “O dread and potent 
man! save him—save him! He is not guilty; itis I! He 
lies within, ill, dying, and I, —I am the hateful cause! And 
they will not admit me to him; they spurn the blind girl from 
the hall. Oh, heal him! thou nbwast t_some herb, some spell, 
some countercharm, for it is a potion. that hath wrought this 
frenzy !” tae 

“ Hush, child! I paw allt “Thou forgettest that I accom- 
panied Julia to the Saga’s home. Doubtless her hand admin- 
istered the draught, but her reputation demands thy silence. 
Reproach not thyself; what must be, must: meanwhile, I seek 
the criminal; he may yet be saved. Away!” 

Thus saying, Arbaces extricated himself from the clasp of 
the despairing Thessalian, and knocked loudly at the door. 

In a few moments the heavy bars were heard suddenly to 
yield, and the porter, half opening the door, demanded who 
was there. 

“‘ Arbaces ; important business to Sallust relative to Glaucus. 
I come from the pretor.” 

The porter, half yawning, half groaning, admitted the tall 
form of the Egyptian. Nydia sprang forward. “How is 
he ?” she cried; “tell me, tell me!” 

“Ho, mad girl! is it thou still? for shame! Why, they 
say he is sensible.” 

“The gods be praised! And you will not admit me? Ah! 
I beseech thee —” 

“ Admit thee! No. A pretty salute I should prepare for 
these shoulders were I to admit such things as thou! Go 
home!” 

The door closed, and Nydia with a deep sigh laid herself 
down once more on the cold stones, and wrapping her cloak 
round her face, resumed her weary vigil. 

Meanwhile Arbaces had already gained the triclinium, where 
Sallust, with his favorite freedman, sat late at supper. 

“What! Arbaces! and at this hour! Accept this cup.” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 95 


“Nay, gentle Sallust; it is on business, not pleasure, that I 
venture to disturb thee. How doth thy charge? They say 
in the town that he has recovered sense.” 

“ Alas! and truly,” replied the good-natured but thoughtless 
Sallust, wiping the tear trom his eyes; “but so shattered are 
his nerves and frame that I scarcely recognize the brilliant and 
gay carouser I was wont to know. Yet, strange to say, he 
cannot account for the cause of the sudden frenzy that seized 
him; he retains but a dim consciousness of what hath passed ; 
and, despite thy witness, wise Egyptian, solemnly upholds his 
innocence of the death of Apsecides.” 

“Sallust,” said Arbaces, gravely, “there is much in thy 
friend’s case that merits a peculiar indulgence; and could we 
learn from his lips the confession and the cause of his crime, 
much might be yet hoped from the mercy of the senate; for 
the senate, thou knowest, hath the power either to mitigate or 
to sharpen the law. Therefore it is that I have conferred with 
the highest authority of the city, and obtained his permission 
to hold a private conference this night with the Athenian. 
To-morrow, thou knowest, the trial comes on.” 

“Well,” said Sallust, “thou wilt be worthy of thy Eastern 
name and fame if thou canst learn aught from him; but thou 
mayst try. Poor Glaucus! And he had such an excellent 
appetite! He eats nothing now!” 

The benevolent epicure was moved sensibly at this thought. 
He sighed, and ordered his slaves to refill his cup. 

“Night wanes,” said the Egyptian; “suffer me to see thy 
ward now.” 

Sallust nodded assent, and led the way to a small chamber, 
guarded without by two dozing slaves. The door opened ; at 
the request of Arbaces, Sallust withdrew: the Egyptian was 
alone with Glaucus. 

One of those tall and graceful candelabra common to that 
day, supporting a single lamp, burned beside the narrow bed. 
Its rays fell palely over the face of the Athenian, and Arbaces 
was moved to see how sensibly that countenance had changed. 
The rich color was gone, the cheek was sunk, the lips were 
convulsed and pallid; fierce had been the struggle between 


96 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


reason and madness, life and death. The youth, the strength 
of Glaucus had conquered; but the freshness of blood and 
soul, the life of life, its glory and its zest, were gone forever. 

The Egyptian seated himself quietly beside the bed; Glau- 
cus still lay mute, and unconscious of his presence. At length, 
after a considerable pause, Arbaces thus spoke, — 

‘“‘Glaucus, we have been enemies. I come to thee alone and 
in the dead of night, — thy friend, perhaps thy saviour.” 

As the steed starts from the path of the tiger, Glaucus — 
sprang up breathless, alarmed, panting at the abrupt voice, 
the sudden apparition of his foe. Their eyes met, and neither, 
for some moments, had power to withdraw his gaze. The 
flush went and came over the face of the Athenian, and the 
bronzed cheek of the Egyptian grew a shade more pale. At 
length, with an inward groan, Glaucus turned away, drew his 
hand across his brow, sank back, and muttered, — 

“ Am I still dreaming ? ” 

“No, Glaucus, thou art awake. By this right hand and my 
father’s head, thou seest one who may save thy life. Hark! 
I know what thou hast done, but I know also its excuse, of » 
which thou thyself art ignorant. Thou hast committed mur- 
der, it is true, —a sacrilegious murder: frown not, start not, 
these eyes saw it. But I can save thee; I can prove how thou 
wert bereaved of sense, and made not a free-thinking and free- 
acting man. But in order to save thee, thou must confess thy 
crime. Sign but this paper, acknowledging thy hand in the 
death of Apeecides, and thou shalt avoid the fatal urn.” 

“ What words are these? Murder and Apecides! Did I 
not see him stretched on the ground, bleeding and a corpse, 
and wouldst thou persuade me that Z did the deed? Man, 
thou hest! Away!” 

“Be not rash, Glaucus, be not hasty; the deed is proved. 
Come, come, thou mayst well be excused for not recalling the 
act of thy delirium, and which thy sober senses would have 
shunned even to contemplate. But let me try to refresh thy 
exhausted and weary memory. Thou knowest thou wert 
walking with the priest, disputing about his sister; thou 
knowest he was intolerant, and half a Nazarene, and he sought 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 97 


to convert thee, and ye had hot words; and he calumniated 
thy mode of life, and swore he would not marry Ione to thee, 
— and then, in thy wrath and thy frenzy, thou didst strike the 
sudden blow. Come, come; you can recollect this! Read 
this papyrus; it runs to that effect: sign it, and thou art 
saved.” 

‘‘ Barbarian, give me the written lie, that I may tear it! J 
the murderer of lone’s brother! J confess to have injured 
one hair of the head of him she loved! Let me rather perish 
a thousand times!” 

“Beware!” said Arbaces, in a low and hissing tone; “there 
is but one choice, — thy confession and thy signature, or the 
amphitheatre and the lion’s maw !” 

As the Egyptian fixed his eyes upon the sufferer, he hailed 
with joy the signs of evident emotion that seized the latter at 
these words. <A slight shudder passed over the Athenian’s 
frame, his lip fell, an expression of sudden fear and wonder 
betrayed itself in his brow and eye. 

“Great gods!” he said in a low voice, “ what reverse is this ? 
It seems but a little day since life laughed out from amidst 
roses: Ione mine, — youth, health, love lavishing on me their 
treasures; and now, — pain, madness, shame, death! And for 
what? What have I have done? Oh, I am mad still!” 

“Sign, and be saved!” said the soft, sweet voice of the 
Egyptian. 

“Tempter, never!” cried Glaucus, in the reaction of rage. 
‘‘Thou knowest me not: thou knowest not the haughty soul of 
an Athenian. The sudden face of death might appall me for a 
moment, but the fear is over. Dishonor appalls forever. Who 
will debase his name to save his life; who exchange clear 
thoughts for sullen days? Who will belie himself to shame, 
and stand blackened in the eyes of glory and of love? If to 
earn a few years of polluted life there be so base a coward, 
dream not, dull barbarian of Egypt! to find him in one who 
has trod the same sod as Harmodius, and breathed the same 
air as Socrates. Go! leave me to live without self-reproach, or 
to perish without fear!” 

“ Bethink thee well,—the lion’s fangs, the hoots of the 


VoL. 11.—7 


98 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


brutal mob, the vulgar gaze on thy dying agony and muti- 
lated limbs, thy name degraded, thy corpse unburied; the 
shame thou wouldst avoid clinging to thee for aye and ever! ” 

“Thou ravest! thou art the madman! Shame is not in the 
loss of other men’s esteem, —it is in the loss of our own. 
Wilt thou go? My eyes loathe the sight of thee! hating ever, 
I despise thee-now ! ” 

“T go,” said Arbaces, stung and exasperated, but not with- 
out some pitying admiration of his victim, — “I go; we meet: 
twice again: once at the Trial, once at the Death! Farewell!” 

The Egyptian rose slowly, gathered his robes about him, and 
left the chamber. He sought Sallust for a moment, whose 
eyes began to reel with the vigils of the cup: “He is still un- 
conscious, or still obstinate; there is no hope for him.” 

“Say not so,” replied Sallust, who felt but little resentment 
against the Athenian’s accuser, for he possessed no great 
austerity of virtue, and was rather moved by his friend’s 
reverses than persuaded of his innocence, — “say not so, my 
Egyptian! So good a drinker shall be saved if possible. 
Bacchus against Isis!” 

“We shall see,” said the Egyptian. 

Suddenly the bolts were again withdrawn, the door unclosed ; 
Arbaces was in the open street; and poor Nydia once more 
started from her long watch. 

“ Wilt thou save him ?” she cried, clasping her hands. 

“Child, follow me home; I would speak to thee: it is for 
his sake I ask it.” 

“ And thou wilt save him ? ” 

No answer came forth to the thirsting ear of the blind girl: 
Arbaces had already proceeded far up the street; she hesitated 
a moment, and then followed his steps in silence. 

“JY must secure this girl,” said he, musingly, “lest she give 
evidence of the philtre; as to the vain Julia, she will not 
betray herself.” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 99 


CHAPTER VIII. 
A CLASSIC FUNERAL. 


Wuitt Arbaces had been thus employed, Sorrow and Death 
- were in the house of Ione. It was the night preceding the 
morn in which the solemn funeral rites were to be decreed to 
the remains of the murdered Apecides. The corpse had been 
removed from the temple of Isis to the house of the nearest 
surviving relative, and Ione had heard in the same breath the 
death of her brother and the accusation against her betrothed. 
That first violent anguish which blunts the sense to all but “ 
itself, and the forbearing silence of her slaves, had prevented 
her learning minutely the circumstances attendant on the fate 
of her lover. His illness, his frenzy, and his approaching trial 
were unknown to her. She learned only the accusation against 
him, and at once indignantly rejected it; nay, on hearing that 
Arbaces was the accuser, she required no more to induce her 
firmly and solemnly to believe that the Egyptian himself was 
the criminal. But the vast and absorbing importance attached 
by the ancients to the performance of every ceremonial con- 
nected with the death of a relation, had as yet confined her 
woe and her convictions to the chamber of the deceased. Alas! 
it was not for her to perform that tender and touching office 
which obliged the nearest relative to endeavor to catch the last 
breath, the parting soul, -—of the beloved one: but it was 
hers to close the straining eyes, the distorted lips; to watch 
by the consecrated clay, as, fresh bathed and anointed, it lay 
in festive robes upon the ivory bed; to strew the couch with | 
leaves and flowers, and to renew the solemn cypress-branch at 
the threshold of the door. And in these sad offices, in lamen- 
tation and in prayer, Ione forgot herself. It was among the 
loveliest customs of the ancients to bury the young at the 
morning twilight; for, as they strove to give the softest inter- 
pretation to death, so they poetically imagined that Aurora, 
who loved the young, had stolen them to her embrace; and 
though in the instance of the murdered priest this fable could 


100 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL. | 


not appropriately cheat the fancy, the general custom was still 
preserved.? | 

The stars were fading one by one from the gray heavens, 
and night slowly receding before the approach of morn, when 
a dark group stood motionless before Ione’s door. High and 
slender torches, made paler by the unmellowed dawn, cast 
their light over various countenances, hushed for the moment 
in one solemn and intent expression. And now there arose a 
slow and dismal music, which accorded sadly with the rite, and. 
floated far along the desolate and breathless streets; while a 
chorus of female voices (the Preefice so often cited by the Ro- 
man poets), accompanying the Tibicen and the Mysian flute, 
woke the following strain: — 


THE FUNERAL DIRGE. 


O’er the sad threshold, where the cypress-bough 
Supplants the rose that should adorn thy home, 
On the last pilgrimage on earth that now 
Awaits thee, wanderer to Cocytus, come! 
Darkly we woo, and weeping we invite : 
Death is thy host, his banquet asks thy soul ; 
Thy garlands hang within the House of Night, 
And the black stream alone shall fill thy bowl. 


No more for thee the laughter and the song, 
The jocund night, the glory of the day. 

The Argive daughters ? at their labors long ; 
The hell-bird swooping on its Titan prey — 

The false AZolides ? upheaving slow, 
O’er the eternal hill, the eternal stone ; 

The crowned Lydian,‘ in his parching woe, 
And green Callirrhoé’s monster-headed son,5 


These shalt thou see, dim shadow’d through the dark, 
Which makes the sky of Pluto’s dreary shore ; 

Lo! where thou stand’st, pale-gazing on the bark 
That waits our rite ® to bear thee trembling o’er! 


1 This was rather a Greek than a Roman custom; but the reader will ob- 
serve that in the cities of Magna Grecia the Greek customs and superstitions 
were much mingled with the Roman. 

2 The Danaides. 3 Sisyphus. 4 Tantalus. 5 Geryon. 

6 The most idle novel-reader need scarcely be reminded that not till after 
the funeral rites were the dead carried over the Styx. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 101 


Come, then, no more delay! — the phantom pines 
Amidst the Unburied for its latest home ; 

O’er the gray sky the torch impatient shines, — 
Come, mourner, forth! — the lost one bids thee come. 


As the hymn died away, the group parted in twain; and 
placed upon a couch, spread with a purple pall, the corpse of 
Apeecides was carried forth, with the feet foremost. The 
designator, or marshal of the sombre ceremonial, accompanied. 
by his torch-bearers, clad in black, gave the signal, and the 
procession moved dreadly on. : 

First went the musicians, playing a slow march; the solem- 
nity of the lower instruments broken by many a louder and 
wilder burst of the funeral trumpet; next followed the hired 
mourners, chanting their dirges to the dead; and the female 
voices were mingled with those of boys, whose tender years 
made still more striking the contrast of life and death, the 
fresh leaf and the withered one. But the players, the buf- 
foons, the archimimus (whose duty it was to personate the 
dead), — these, the customary attendants at ordinary funerals, 
were banished from a funeral attended with so many terrible 
associations. 

The priests of Isis came next in their snowy garments, 
barefooted, and supporting sheaves of corn; while before the 
corpse were carried the images of the deceased and his many 
Athenian forefathers. And behind the bier followed, amidst 
her women, the sole surviving relative of the dead, her 
head bare, her locks dishevelled, her face paler than marble, 
but composed and still, save ever and anon, as some tender 
thought, awakened by the music, flashed upon the dark leth- 
argy of woe, she covered that countenance with her hands, and 
sobbed unseen; for hers were not the noisy sorrow, the shrill 
lament, the ungoverned gesture, which characterized those 
who honored less faithfully. In that age, as in all, the chan- 
nel of deep grief flowed hushed and still. 

And so the procession swept on, till it had traversed the 
streets, passed the city gate, and gained the Place of Tombs 
without the wall, which the traveller yet beholds. 

Raised in the form of an altar — of unpolished pine, amidst 


102 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 


whose interstices were placed preparations of combustible 
matter —stood the funeral pyre; and around it drooped the 
dark and gloomy cypresses so consecrated by song to the 
tomb. | 

As soon as the bier was placed upon the pile, the attendants 
parting on either side, Ione passed up to the couch, and stood 
before the unconscious clay for some moments motionless and 
silent. The features of the dead had been composed from the 
first agonized expression of violent death. Hushed forever 
the terror and the doubt, the contest of passion, the awe of re- 
ligion, the struggle of the past and present, the hope and the 
horror of the future! Of all that racked and desolated the 
breast of that young aspirant to the Holy of Life, what trace 
was visible in the awful serenity of that impenetrable brow 
and unbreathing lip? The sister gazed, and not a sound was 
heard amidst the crowd; there was something terrible, yet 
softening also, in the silence; and when it broke, it broke 
sudden and abrupt: it broke with a loud and passionate cry, 
the event of long-smothered despair. 

“My brother! my brother!” cried the poor orphan, falling 
upon the couch; “thou whom the worm on thy path feared 
not— what enemy couldst thou provoke? Oh, is it in truth 
come to this? Awake! awake! We grew together! Are 
we thus torn asunder? ‘Thou art not dead: thou sleepest. 
Awake! awake!” 

The sound of her piercing voice aroused the sympathy of 
the mourners, and they broke into loud and rude lament, 
This startled, this recalled Ione; she looked up hastily and 
confusedly, as if for the first time sensible of the presence of 
those around. 

“Ah!” she murmured with a shiver, “we are not then 
alone /” } 

With that, after a brief pause, she rose, and her pale and 
beautiful countenance was again composed and rigid. With 
fond and trembling hands she unclosed the lids of the de- 
ceased ;* but when the dull, glazed eye, no longer beaming 
with love and life, met hers, she shrieked aloud, as if she had 

1 Pliny, ii. 37. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETL. 103 


seen a spectre. Once more recovering herself, she kissed 
again and again the lids, the lips, the brow, and with me- 
chanic and unconscious hand received from the high priest 
of her brother’s temple the funeral torch. 

The sudden burst of music, the sudden song of the mourn- 
ers, announced the birth of the sanctifying flame. 


HYMN TO THE WIND. 


Bie 


On thy couch of cloud reclined, 

Wake, O soft and sacred Wind! 

Soft and sacred will we name thee, 
Whosoe’er the sire that claim thee, — 
Whether old Auster’s dusky child, 

Or the loud son of Eurus wild; 

Or his! who o’er the darkling deeps, 
From the bleak North, in tempest sweeps, 
Still shalt thou seem as dear to us 

As flowery-crowned Zephyrus, 

When, through twilight’s starry dew, 
Trembling, he hastes his nymph? to woo. 


II. 
Lo! our silver censers swinging, 
Perfumes o’er thy path are flinging, — 
Ne’er o’er Tempe’s breathless valleys, 
Ne’er o’er Cypria’s cedarn alleys, 
Or the Rose-Isle’s 3 moonlit sea, 
Floated sweets more worthy thee. 
Lo! around our vases sending 
Myrrh and nard with cassia blending : 
Paving air with odors meet 
For thy silver-sandall’d feet ! 


III. 


August and everlasting air! 
The source of all that breathe and be, 
From the mute clay before thee bear 
The seeds it took from thee ! 
Aspire, bright Flame! aspire ! 
Wild Wind !— awake, awake! 
Thine own, O solemn Fire! 
O Air, thine own retake ! 


1 Boreas. 2 Flora. 8 Rhodes. 


104 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


IV. 


It comes! it comes! Lo! it sweeps, 
The Wind we invoke the while! 
And crackles, and darts, and leaps 
The light on the holy pile! 
It rises! its wings interweave 
With the flames, —how they howl and heave! 
Toss’d, whirl’d to and fro, 
How the flame-serpents glow! 
Rushing higher and higher, 
On, on, fearful Fire! 
Thy giant limbs twined 
With the arms of the Wind! 
Lo! the elements meet on the throne 
Of death — to reclaim their own! 


Vv. 


Swing, swing the censer round; 
Tune the strings to a softer sound! 
From the chains of thy earthly toil, 
From the clasp of thy mortal coil, 
From the prison where clay confined thee, 
The hands of the flame unbind thee! 
O Soul! thou art free — all free! 


As the winds in their ceaseless chase, 
When they rush o’er their airy sea, 
Thou mayst speed through the realms of space, — 
No fetter is forged for thee! 
Rejoice! o’er the sluggard tide 
Of the Styx thy bark can glide, 
And thy steps evermore shall rove 
Through the glades of the happy grove, 
Where, far from the loath’d Cocytus, 
The loved and the lost invite us. 
Thou art slave to the earth no more! 
O soul, thou art freed! and we, — 
Ah! when shall our toil be o’er ? 
Ah! when shall we rest with thee ? 


And now high and far into the dawning skies broke the fra- 
grant fire; it flushed luminously across the gloomy cypresses ; 
it shot above the massive walls of the neighboring city; and 
the early fisherman started to behold the blaze reddening on 
the waves of the creeping sea. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 105 


But Ione sat down apart and alone, and, leaning her face 
upon her hands, saw not the flame nor heard the lamentation 
or the music; she felt only one sense of loneliness; she had 
not yet arrived at that hallowing sense of comfort, when we 
know that we are not alone, — that the dead are with us. 

The breeze rapidly aided the effect of the combustibles 
placed within the pile. By degrees the flame wavered, low- 
ered, dimmed, and slowly, by fits and unequal starts, died 
away, — emblem of life itself; where, just before, all was rest- 
lessness and flame, now lay the dull and smouldering ashes. 

The last sparks were extinguished by the attendants; the 
embers were collected. Steeped in the rarest wine and the 
costliest odors, the remains were placed in a silver urn, which 
was solemnly stored in one of the neighboring sepulchres be- 
side the road; and they placed within it the phial full of tears, 
and the small coin which poetry still consecrated to the grim 
boatman. And the sepulchre was covered with flowers and 
chaplets, and incense kindled on the altar, and the tomb hung 
round with many lamps. 

But the next day, when the priest returned with fresh 
offerings to the tomb, he found that to the relics of heathen 
superstition some unknown hands had added a green palm- 
branch. He suffered it to remain, unknowing that it was the 
sepulchral emblem of Christianity. 

When the above ceremonies were over, one of the Preeficee 
three times sprinkled the mourners from the purifying branch 
of laurel, uttering the last word, “ Ilicet /” (Depart) and the 
rite was done. 

But first they paused to utter, weepingly and many times, 
the affecting farewell, “Salve Hternum/” And as Ione yet 
lingered they woke the parting strain. 


SALVE ETERNUM. 


1: 
Farewell, O soul departed ! 
Farewell, O sacred urn! 
Bereaved and broken-hearted, 
To earth the mourners turn! 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


To the dim and dreary shore 
Thou art gone our steps before ! 
But thither the swift Hours lead us, 
And thou dost but a while precede us! 
Salve —salve! 
Loved urn, and thou solemn cell, 
Mute ashes! farewell, farewell! 
Salve — salve! 


II. 

Tlicet — ire licet — 
Ah, vainly would we part! 
Thy tomb is the faithful heart. 
About evermore we bear thee ; 
For who from the heart can tear thee ? 
Vainly we sprinkle o’er us 

The drops of the cleansing stream ; 
And vainly bright before us 

The lustral fire shall beam. 
For where is the charm expelling 
Thy thought from its sacred dwelling ? 
Our griefs are thy funeral feast, 
And memory thy mourning priest : 

Salve — salve! 


Ill. 
Tlicet — ire licet ! 
The spark from the hearth is gone 
Wherever the air shall bear it ; 
The elements take their own, — 
The shadows receive thy spirit. 
It will soothe thee to feel our grief 
As thou glid’st by the Gloomy River! 
If love may in life be brief, 
In death it is fix’d forever. 
Salve — salve ! 
In the hall which our feasts illume, 
The rose for an hour may bloom ; 
But the cypress that decks the tomb, == 
The cypress is green forever ! 
Salve — salve ! 


Le a 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 107 


CHAPTER IX. 
IN WHICH AN ADVENTURE HAPPENS TO IONE. 


_ WuttE some stayed behind to share with the priests the 

funeral banquet, Ione and her handmaids took homeward their 
melancholy way. And now (the last duties to her brother 
-performed) her mind awoke from its absorption, and she 
thought of her affianced, and the dread charge against him- 
Not, as we have before said, attaching even a momentary be- 
lief to the unnatural accusation, but nursing the darkest sus- 
picion against Arbaces, she felt that justice to her lover and 
to her murdered relative demanded her to seek the preetor, 
and communicate her impression, unsupported as it might 
be. Questioning her maidens, who had _ hitherto — kindly 
anxious, as I have said, to save her the additional agony — 
refrained from informing her of the state of Glaucus, she 
learned that he had been dangerously ill; that he was in 
custody, under the roof of Sallust; that the day of his trial 
was appointed. 

“ Averting gods!” she exclaimed, “and have I been so 
long forgetful of him? Have I seemed to shun him? Oh, 
let me hasten to do him justice; to show that I, the nearest 
relative of the dead, believe him innocent of the charge. 
Quick! quick! let us fly. Let me soothe, tend, cheer him! 
And if they will not believe me; if they will not yield to my 
conviction; if they sentence him to exile or to death, let me 
share the sentence with him!” 

Instinctively she hastened her pace, confused and bewil- 
dered, scarce knowing whither she went; now designing first 
to seek the pretor, and now to rush to the chamber of Glaucus. 
She hurried on, she passed the gate of the city, she was in the 
long street leading up the town. The houses were opened, but 
none were yet astir in the streets; the life of the city was 
scarce awake, when lo! she came suddenly upon a small knot 
of men standing beside a covered litter. A tall figure stepped 


108 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


from the midst of them, and Ione shrieked aloud to behold 
Arbaces. ) 

“Fair Ione,” said he, gently, and appearing not to heed 
her alarm, “my ward, my pupil! forgive me if I disturb thy 
pious sorrows; but the pretor, solicitous of thy honor, and 
anxious that thou mayst not rashly be implicated in the com- 
ing trial, knowing the strange embarrassment of thy state (seek- 
ing justice for thy brother, but dreading punishment to thy 
betrothed), sympathizing, too, with thy unprotected and friend- 
less condition, and deeming it harsh that thou shouldst be 
suffered to act unguided and mourn alone, hath wisely and 
paternally confided thee to the care of thy lawful guardian. 
Behold the writing which intrusts thee to my charge!” 

“Dark Egyptian,” cried Ione, drawing herself proudly 
aside, “begone! It is thon that hast slain my brother! Is it 
to thy care, thy hands yet reeking with his blood, that they 
will give the sister? Ha! thou turnest pale! thy conscience 
smites thee! thou tremblest at the thunderbolt of the aveng- 
ing gods! Pass on, and leave me to my woe!” 

“Thy sorrows unstring thy reason, Jone,” said Arbaces, 
attempting in vain his usual calmness of tone. “I forgive 
thee. Thou wilt find me now, as ever, thy surest friend. But 
the public streets are not the fitting place for us to confer, 
for me to console thee. Approach, slaves! Come, my sweet 
charge, the litter awaits thee.” 

The amazed and terrified attendants gathered round Ione 
and clung to her knees. 

“ Arbaces,” said the eldest of the maidens, “this is surely 
not the law! Yor nine days after the funeral, is it not written 
that the relatives of the deceased shall not be molested in their 
homes, or interrupted in their solitary grief?” 

“Woman!” returned Arbaces, imperiously waving his hand, 
“to place a ward under the roof of her guardian is not against 
the funeral laws. I tell thee I have the fiat of the preetor. 
This delay is indecorous. Place her in the litter.” 

So saying, he threw his arms firmly round the shrinking 
form of Ione. She drew back, gazed earnestly in his face, 
and then burst into hysterical laughter: — 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 109 


“Ha, ha! this is well— well! Excellent guardian, pater- 
nallaw! Ha, ha!” And, startled herself at the dread echo 
of that shrill and maddened laughter, she sunk, as it died 
away, lifeless upon the ground....A minute more, and 
Arbaces had lifted her into the litter. The bearers moved 
swiftly on, and the unfortunate lone was soon borne from 
the sight of her weeping handmaids. 


CHAPTER X. 


WHAT BECOMES OF NYDIA IN THE HOUSE OF ARBACES. — THE 
EGYPTIAN FEELS COMPASSION FOR GLAUCUS. — COMPASSION 
IS OFTEN A VERY USELESS VISITOR TO THE GUILTY. 


Ir will be remembered that at the command of Arbaces 
Nydia followed the Egyptian to his home, and conversing 
there with her, he learned from the confession of her despair 
and remorse that her hand, and not Julia’s, had administered 
to Glaucus the fatal potion. At another time the Egyptian 
might have conceived a philosophical interest in sounding the 
depths and origin of the strange and absorbing passion which, 
in blindness and in slavery, this singular girl had dared to 
cherish; but at present he spared no thought from himself. 
As, after her confession, the poor Nydia threw herself on her 
knees before him, and besought him to restore the health and 
save the life of Glaucus, — for in her youth and ignorance she 
imagined the dark magician all-powerful to effect both, — 
Arbaces, with unheeding ears, was noting only the new ex- 
pediency of detaining Nydia a prisoner until the trial and 
fate of Glaucus were decided. For if, when he judged her 
merely the accomplice of Julia in obtaining the philtre, he 
had felt it was dangerous to the full success of his vengeance 
to allow her to be at large, to appear, perhaps, as a witness, 
to avow the manner in which the sense of Glaucus had been 
darkened, and thus win indulgence to the crime of which he 
was accused, — how much more was she likely to volunteer her 


110 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


testimony when she herself had administered the draught, and, 
inspired by love, would be only anxious, at any expense of 
shame, to retrieve her error and preserve her beloved? Be- 
sides, how unworthy of the rank and repute of Arbaces to be 
implicated in the disgrace of pandering to the passion of Julia, 
and assisting in the unholy rites of the Saga of Vesuvius! Noth- 
ing less, indeed, than his desire to induce Glaucus to own the 
murder of Apecides, as a policy evidently the best both for his 
own permanent safety and his successful suit with Ione, could - 
ever have led him to contemplate the confession of Julia. 

As for Nydia, who was necessarily cut off by her blindness 
from much of the knowledge of active life, and who, a slave 
and a stranger, was naturally ignorant of the perils of the 
Roman law, she thought rather of the illness and delirium of 
her Athenian than the crime of which she had vaguely heard 
him accused, or the chances of the impending trial. Poor 
wretch that she was, whom none addressed, none cared for, 
what did she know of the senate and the sentence, the hazard 
of the law, the ferocity of the people, the arena, and the 
lion’s den? She was accustomed only to associate with the 
thought of Glaucus everything that was prosperous and lofty: 
she could not imagine that any peril, save from the madness 
of her love, could menace that sacred head. He seemed to 
her set apart for the blessings of life. She only had disturbed 
the current of his felicity; she knew not, she dreamed not 
that the stream once so bright was dashing on to darkness 
and to death. It was therefore to restore the brain that she 
had marred, to save the life that she had endangered, that she 
implored the assistance of the great Egyptian. 

“Daughter,” said Arbaces, waking from his reverie, “thou 
must rest here; it is not meet for thee to wander along the 
streets, and be spurned from the threshold by the rude feet of 
slaves. J have compassion on thy soft crime; I will do all to 
remedy it. Wait here patiently for some days, and Glaucus 
shall be restored.” So saying, and without waiting for her 
reply, he hastened from the room, drew the bolt across the 
door, and consigned the care and wants of his prisoner to the 
slave who had the charge of that part of the mansion. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 111 


_ Alone, then, and musingly, he waited the morning light, and 
with it repaired, as we have seen, to possess himself of the 
person of Ione. 

His primary object with respect to the unfortunate Neapoli- 
tan was that which he had really stated to Clodius; namely, to 
prevent her interesting herself actively in the trial of Glaucus, 
_and also to guard against her accusing him (which she would, 
doubtless, have done) of his former act of perfidy and violence 
towards her, his ward, — denouncing his causes for vengeance 
against Glaucus, unveiling the hypocrisy of his character, and 
casting any doubt upon his veracity in the charge which he 
had made against the Athenian. Not till he had encountered 
her that morning, not till he had heard her loud denunciations, 
was he aware that he had also another danger to apprehend in 
her suspicion of his crime. He hugged himself now in the 
thought that these ends were effected; that one, at once the 
object of his passion and his fear, was in his power. He be- 
lieved more than ever the flattering promises of the stars; and 
when he sought Ione in that chamber in the inmost recesses 
of his mysterious mansion to which he had consigned her, 
when he found her overpowered by blow upon blow, and 
passing from fit to fit, from violence to torpor, in all the 
alternations of hysterical disease, he thought more of the love- 
liness which no frenzy could distort, than of the woe which 
he had brought upon her. In that sanguine vanity common 
to men who through life have been invariably successful, 
whether in, fortune or love, he flattered himself that when 
Glaucus had perished, when his name was solemnly black- 
ened by the award of a legal judgment, his title to her love 
forever forfeited by condemnation to death for the murder of 
her own brother, her affection would be changed to horror; 
and that his tenderness and his passion, assisted by all the 
arts with which he well knew how to dazzle woman’s imagi- 
nation, might elect him to that throne in her heart from 
which his rival would be so awfully expelled. This was his 
hope; but should it fail, his unholy and fervid passion whis- 
pered, “ At the worst, now she is in my power.” 

Yet, withal, he felt that uneasiness and apprehension which 


112 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


attend upon the chance of detection, even when the criminal is 
insensible to the voice of conscience, — that vague terror of the 
consequences of crime which is often mistaken for remorse 
at the crime itself. The buoyant air of Campania weighed 
heavily upon his breast; he longed to hurry from a scene 
where danger might not sleep eternally with the dead; and, 
having Jone now in his possession, he secretly resolved, as 
soon as he had witnessed the last agony of his rival, to trans- 
port his wealth, and her, the costliest treasure of all, to some © 
distant shore. 

“Yes,” said he, striding to and fro his solitary chamber, — 
“ves, the law that gave me the person of my ward gives me 
the possession of my bride. Far across the broad main will 
we Sweep on our search after novel luxuries and inexperienced 
pleasures. Cheered by my stars, supported by the omens of 
my soul, we will penetrate to those vast and glorious worlds 
which my wisdom tells me lie yet untracked in the recesses 
of the circling sea. There may this heart, possessed of love, 
grow once more alive to ambition; there, amongst nations 
uncrushed by the Roman yoke, and to whose ear the name 
of Rome has not yet been wafted, I may found an empire, and 
transplant my ancestral creed, renewing the ashes of the dead 
Theban rule, continuing in yet grander shores the dynasty of 
my crowned fathers, and waking in the noble heart of Ione the 
grateful consciousness that she shares the lot of one who, far 
from the aged rottenness of this slavish civilization, restores 
the primal elements of greatness, and unites in one mighty 
soul the attributes of the prophet and the king.” 

From this exultant soliloquy Arbaces was awakened to at- 
tend the trial of the Athenian. 

The worn and pallid cheek of his victim touched him less 
than the firmness of his nerves and the dauntlessness of his 
brow; for Arbaces was one who had little pity for what was 
unfortunate, but a strong sympathy for what was bold. The 
congenialities that bind us to others ever assimilate to the 
qualities of our own nature. The hero weeps less at the re- 
verses of his enemy than at the fortitude with which he bears 
them. All of us are human, and Arbaces, criminal as he was, 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 113 


had his share of our common feelings and our mother clay. 
Had he but obtained from Glaucus the written confession of 
his crime, which would, better than even the judgment of 
others, have lost him with Ione, and removed from Arbaces the 
chance of future detection, the Egyptian would have strained 
every nerve to save his rival. Even now his hatred was over, 
his desire of revenge was slaked: he crushed his prey, not in 
enmity, but as an obstacle in his path. Yet was he not the 
less resolved, the less crafty and persevering, in the course he 
pursued for the destruction of one whose doom was become 
necessary to the attainment of his objects; and while, with 
apparent reluctance and compassion, he gave against Glaucus 
the evidence which condemned him, he secretly, and through 
the medium of the priesthood, fomented that popular indigna- 
tion which made an effectual obstacle to the pity of the senate. 
He had sought Julia; he had detailed to her the confession of 
Nydia; he had easily, therefore, lulled any scruple of con- 
science which might have led her to extenuate the offence of 
Glaucus by avowing her share in his frenzy: and the more 
readily, for her vain heart had loved the fame and the pros- 
perity of Glaucus, not Glaucus himself; she felt no affection 
for a disgraced man; nay, she almost rejoiced in the disgrace 
that humbled the hated Ione. If Glaucus could not be her 
slave, neither could he be the adorer of her rival. This was 
sufficient consolation for any regret at his fate. Volatile and 
fickle, she began again to be moved by the sudden and earnest 
suit of Clodius, and was not willing to hazard the loss of an 
alliance with that base but high-born noble by any public ex- 
posure of her past weakness and immodest passion for another. 
All things then smiled upon Arbaces: all things frowned 
upon the Athenian. 


VOL. 11.—8 


114 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


CHAPTER XI. 
NYDIA AFFECTS THE SORCERESS. 


WueEwn the Thessalian found that Arbaces returned to her 
no more, when she was left, hour after hour, to all the torture 
of that miserable suspense which was rendered by blindness 
doubly intolerable, she began, with outstretched arms, to feel 
around her prison for some channel of escape; and finding the 
only entrance secure, she called aloud, and with the vehemence 
of a temper naturally violent, and now sharpened by impatient 
agony. 

“Ho, girl!” said the slave in attendance, opening the door, 
“art thou bit by a.scorpion, or thinkest thou that we are 
dying of silence here, and only to be preserved, like the infant 
Jupiter, by a hullabaloo ? ” 

“Where is thy master, and wherefore am I caged here? I 
want air and liberty: let me go forth!” 

“Alas! little one, hast thou not seen enough of Arbaces to 
know that his will is imperial? He hath ordered thee to be 
caged; and caged thou art, and 1am thy keeper. Thou canst 
not have air and liberty ; but thou mayst have what are much 
better things, — food and wine.” 

“Proh Jupiter!” cried the girl, wringing her hands; “and 
why am I thus imprisoned? What can the great Arbaces 
want with so poor a thing as Iam?” 

“That I know not, unless it be to attend on thy new mis- 
tress, who has been brought hither this day.” 

“ What! Ione here ?” 

“Yes, poor lady! she liked it little, I fear. Yet, by the 
Temple of Castor! Arbaces is a gallant man to the women. 
Thy lady is his ward, thou knowest.” 

“Wilt thou take me to her ?” 

“She is ill; frantic with rage and spite. Besides, I have no 
orders to do so; and I never think for myself. When Arbaces 


——— eS ee eee 


ae we 


re aia 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL. 115 


made me slave of these chambers,! he said, ‘I have but one 
lesson to give thee: while thou servest me, thou must have 
neither ears, eyes, nor thought; thou must be but one quality, 
— obedience.’ ”’ 

“ But what harm is there in seeing Ione ?” 

“That I know not; but if thou wantest a companion, I am 
willing to talk to thee, little one, for I am solitary enough in 
my dull cubiculum. And, by the way, thou art Thessalian; 
knowest thou not some cunning amusement of knife and 
Shears, some pretty trick of telling fortunes, as most of thy 
race do, in order to pass the time?” 

“Tush, slave, hold thy peace! or, if thou wilt speak, what 
hast thou heard of the state of Glaucus ? ” 

“Why, my master has gone to the Athenian’s trial; Glaucus 
will smart for it!” | 

“For what ?” 

“The murder of the priest Apzcides.” 

“a!” said Nydia, pressing her hands to her forehead ; 
“something of this I have indeed heard, but understand not. 
Yet who will dare to touch a hair of his head?” 

“That will the lion, I fear.” 

“ Averting gods! what wickedness dost thou utter?” 

“Why, only that, if he be found guilty, the lion, or may be 
the tiger, will be his executioner.” 

Nydia leaped up, as if an arrow had entered her heart; she 
uttered a piercing scream; then, falling before the feet of 
the slave, she cried, in a tone that melted even his rude 
heart, — 

“ Ah! tell me thou jestest —thou utterest not the truth — 
speak, speak !” 

“Why, by my faith, blind girl, I know nothing of the 
law; it may not be so bad as I say. But Arbaces is his ac- 
cuser, and the people desire a victim for the arena. Cheer 
thee! But what hath the fate of the Athenian to do with — 
thine ?” 

“No matter, no matter; he has been kind to me: thou 
knowest not, then, what they will do? Arbaces his accuser! 

1 In the houses of the great, each suite of chambers had its peculiar slave. 


116% THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


O fate! The people, the people! Ah, they can look upon 
his face! Who will be cruel to the Athenian! Yet was not 
Love itself cruel to him?” 

So saying, her head drooped upon her bosom: she sunk into 
silence; scalding tears flowed down her cheeks; and all the 
kindly efforts of the slave were unable either to console her or 
distract the absorption of her reverie. 

When his household cares obliged the ministrant to leave 
her room, Nydia began to re-collect her thoughts. Arbaces - 
was the accuser of Glaucus; Arbaces had imprisoned her 
here: was not that a proof that her liberty might be service- 
able to Glaucus? Yes, she was evidently inveigled into some 
snare; she was contributing to the destruction of her beloved. 
Oh, how she panted for release! Fortunately for her 
sufferings, all sense of pain became merged in the desire of 
escape; and as she began to revolve the possibility of deliver- 
ance, she grew calm and thoughtful. She possessed much of 
the craft of her sex, and it had been increased in her breast 
by her early servitude. What slave was ever destitute of 
cunning? She resolved to practise upon her keeper; and, 
calling suddenly to mind his superstitious query as to her 
Thessalian art, she hoped by that handle to work out some 
method of release. These doubts occupied her mind during 
the rest of the day and the long hours of night; and accord- 
ingly when Sosia visited her the following morning, she 
hastened to divert his garrulity into that channel in which it 
had before evinced a natural disposition to flow. 

She was aware, however, that her only chance of escape was 
at night: and accordingly she was obliged, with a bitter pang 
at the delay, to defer till then her purposed attempt. 

“The night,” said she, “is the sole time in which we can 
well decipher the decrees of Fate; then it is thou must seek 
me. But what desirest thou to learn?” 

“By Pollux! I should like to know as much as my master; 
but that is not to be expected. Let me know, at least, whether 
T shall save enough to purchase my freedom, or whether this 
Egyptian will give it me for nothing. He does such generous 
things sometimes. Next, supposing that be true, shall I pos- 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. i Wy 


sess myself of that snug taberna among the Myropolia,! which 
I have long had in my eye? ’Tis a genteel trade, that of a 
perfumer, and suits a retired slave who has something of a 
gentleman about him!” 

“Ay! so you would have precise answers to those ques- 
tions ? There are various ways of satisfying you. There is 
the Lithomanteia, or Speaking-stone, which answers your 
prayer with an infant’s voice; but then, we have not that 
precious stone with us,—costly is it and rare. Then there 
is the Gastromanteia, whereby the demon casts pale and deadly 
images upon water, prophetic of the future. But this art re- 
quires also glasses of a peculiar fashion, to contain the conse- 
crated liquid, which we have not. I think, therefore, that the 
simplest method of satisfying your desire would be by the 
Magic of Air.” 

“7 trust,” said Sosia, tremulously, “that there is noth- 
ing very frightful in the operation? I have no love for 
apparitions.” 

“Fear not; thou wilt see nothing; thou wilt only hear by 
the bubbling of water whether or not thy suit prospers. First, 
then, be sure, from the rising of the evening star, that thou 
leavest the garden-gate somewhat open, so that the demon 
may feel himself invited to enter therein; and place fruits 
and water near the gate as a sign of hospitality ; then, three 
hours after twilight, come here with a bowl of the coldest and 
purest water, and thou shalt learn all, according to the Thes- 
salian lore my mother taught me. But forget not the garden- 
gate, —all rests upon that: it must be open when you come, 
and for three hours previously.” 

“Trust me,” replied the unsuspecting Sosia; “I know what 
a gentleman’s feelings are when a door is shut in his face, as 
the cook-shop’s hath been in mine many a day; and I know 
also that a person of respectability, as a demon of course is, 
cannot but be pleased, on the other hand, with any little mark 
of courteous hospitality. Meanwhile, pretty one, here is thy 
morning’s meal.” 

“ And what of the trial ? ” 


1 The shops of the perfumers. . 


118 THE LAST. DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Oh, the lawyers are still at it, — talk, talk, —it will last 
over till to-morrow.” 

“To-morrow ? you are sure of that?” 

“So I hear.” 

“ And Jone?” 

“By Bacchus! she must be tolerably well, for she was 
strong enough to make my master stamp and bite his lip this 
morning. I saw him quit her apartment with a brow like a 
thunder-storm.” 

“Lodges she near this ?” 

‘No; in the upper apartments. But I must not stay prating 
here gee Vale /” 


CHAPTER .XI1. 
A WASP VENTURES INTO THE SPIDER’S WEB. 


Tue second night of the trial had set in; and it was nearly 
the time in which Sosia was to brave the dread Unknown, when 
there entered, at that very garden-gate which the slave had 
left ajar, —not, indeed, one of the mysterious spirits of earth 
or air, but the heavy and most human form of Calenus, the 
priest of Isis. He scarcely noted the humble offerings of 
indifferent fruit and still more indifferent wine, which the 
pious Sosia had deemed good enough for the invisible stranger 
they were intended to allure. “Some tribute,” thought he, 
“to the garden god. By my father’s head! if his deityship 
were never better served, he would do well to give up the 
godly profession. Ah, were it not for us priests, the gods 
‘would have a sad time of it. And now for Arbaces: I am 
treading a quicksand, but it ought to covera mine. I have the 
Egyptian’s life in my power: what will he value it at?” 

As he thus soliloquized, he crossed through the open court 
into the peristyle, where a few lamps here and there broke 
upon the empire of the starlit night, and issuing from one 
of the chambers that bordered the colonnade, suddenly en- 
countered Arbaces. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 119 


‘Ho! Calenus, seekest thou me?” said the Egyptian; and 
there was a little embarrassment in his voice. 

“Yes, wise Arbaces; I trust my visit is not unseasonable ? ” 

“Nay; it was but this instant that my freedman Callias 
sneezed thrice at my right hand: I knew, therefore, some 
good fortune was in store for me; and lo! the gods have sent 
me Calenus.” 

«Shall we within to your chamber, Arbaces ? ” 

“As you will; but the night is clear and balmy. I have 
some remains of languor yet lingering on me from my recent 
illness; the air refreshes me; let us walk in the garden; 
we are equally alone there.” 

“With all my heart,” answered the priest; and the two 
friends passed slowly to one of the many terraces which, bor- 
dered by marble vases and sleeping flowers, intersected the 
garden. 

“Tt is a lovely night,” said Arbaces, “blue and beautiful as 
that on which, twenty years ago, the shores of Italy first broke 
upon my view. My Calenus, age creeps upon us: let us, at 
least, feel that we have lived.” | 

‘Thou, at least, mayst arrogate that boast,” said Calenus, 
beating about, as it were, for an opportunity to communicate 
the secret which weighed upon him, and feeling his usual awe 
of Arbaces still more impressively that night, from the quiet 
and friendly tone of dignified condescension which the Egyp- 
tian assumed, — “thou, at least, mayst arrogate that boast. 
Thou hast had countless wealth, a frame on whose close- 
woven fibres disease can find no space to enter, prosperous 
love, inexhaustible pleasure and, even at this hour, trium- 
phant revenge.” 

“Thou alludest to the Athenian. Ay, to-morrow’s sun the 
fiat of his death will go forth. The senate does not relent. 
But thou mistakest: his death gives me no other gratification 
than that it releases me from a rival in the affections of Ione. 
I entertain no other sentiment of animosity against that un- 
fortunate homicide.” 

“ Homicide!” repeated Calenus, slowly and meaningly ; and, 
halting as he spoke, he fixed his eyes upon Arbaces. The stars 


120 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


shone pale and steadily on the proud face of their prophet, 
but they betrayed there no change; the eyes of Calenus fell 
disappointed and abashed. He continued rapidly: “Homicide! 
it is well to charge him with that crime; but thou, of all men, 
knowest that he is innocent.” 

“ Explain thyself,” said Arbaces, coldly, for he had prepared 
himself for the hint his secret fears had foretold. 

“‘ Arbaces,”’ answered Calenus, sinking his voice into a whis- 
per, “I was in the sacred grove, sheltered by the chapel and 
the surrounding foliage. I overheard, I marked the whole. I 
saw thy weapon pierce the heart of Apecides. I blame not 
the deed; it destroyed a foe and an apostate.” 

“Thou sawest the whole!” said Arbaces, dryly; “so I 
imagined: thou wert alone ?” 

“ Alone!” returned Calenus, surprised at the Egyptian’s 
calmness. 

“And wherefore wert thou hid behind the chapel at that 
hour ?” 

“Because I had learned the conversion of Apecides to the 
Christian faith; because I knew that on that spot he was to 
meet the fierce Olinthus; because they were to meet there to 
discuss plans for unveiling the sacred mysteries of our goddess 
to the people; and 1 was there to detect, in order to defeat 
them.” | 

“ Hast thou told living ear what thou didst witness ?” 

“No, my master; the secret is locked in thy servant’s breast.” 

“What! even thy kinsman Burbo guesses it not? Come, 
the truth!” | 

“ By the gods —” 

“Hush! we know each other; what are the gods to us?” 

“ By the fear of thy vengeance, then —no!” 

“ And why hast thou hitherto concealed from me this secret ? 
Why hast thou waited till the eve of the Athenian’s condem: 
nation before thou hast ventured to tell me that Arbaces is a 
murderer; and, having tarried so long, why revealest thou 
now that knowledge ? ” 

“ Because — because — 
in confusion. 


” stammered Calenus, coloring and 


a 


EEO ee 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 1p 


“ Because,” interrupted Arbaces, with a gentle smile, and 
tapping the priest on the shoulder with a kindly and familiar 
gesture, — “because, my Calenus (see, now, I will read thy heart 
and explain its motives), because thou didst wish thoroughly 
to commit and entangle me in the trial, so that I might have 
no loophole of escape; that I might stand firmly pledged to 

perjury and to malice, as well as to homicide; that having 
myself whetted the appetite of the populace to blood, no 
wealth, no power, could prevent my becoming their victim ; 
and thou tellest me thy secret now, ere the trial be over and 
the innocent condemned, to show what a desperate web of 
villany thy word to-morrow could destroy ; to enhance in this, 
the ninth hour, the price of thy forbearance; to show that my 
own arts, in arousing the popular wrath, would, at thy wit- 
ness, recoil upon myself; and that, if not for Glaucus, for me 
would gape the jaws of the lion! Is it not so?” 

“ Arbaces,’”’ replied Calenus, losing all the vulgar audacity 
of his natural character, “verily thou art a Magian; thou 
readest the heart as it were a scroll.” 

“Jt is my vocation,” answered the Egyptian, laughing 
gently. “Well, then, forbear; and when all is over, I will 
make thee rich.” 

“Pardon me,” said the priest, as the quick suggestion of 
that avarice, which was his master-passion, bade him trust no 
future chance of generosity; “pardon me; thou saidst right — 
we know each other. If thou wouldst have me silent, thou 
must pay something in advance, as an offer to Harpocrates.? 
If the rose, sweet emblem of discretion, is to take root firmly, 
water her this night with a stream of gold.” 

“Witty and poetical!” answered <Arbaces, still in that 
bland voice which lulled and encouraged, when it ought to 
have alarmed and checked his griping comrade. “ Wilt thou 
not wait the morrow ? ” 

“Why this delay ? Perhaps, when I can no longer give my 
testimony without shame for not having given it ere the inno- 
cent man suffered, thou wilt forget my claim; and, indeed, thy 
present hesitation is a bad omen of thy future gratitude.” 

1 The god of silence. 


122 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Well, then, Calenus, what wouldst thou have me pay 
thee ? ” 

“Thy life is very precious, and thy wealth is very great,” 
returned the priest, grinning. 

“ Wittier and more witty. But speak out: what shall be 
the sum?” 

“‘ Arbaces, I have heard that in thy secret treasury below, 
beneath those rude Oscan arches which prop thy stately halls, 
thou hast piles of gold, of vases, and of jewels, which might. 
rival the receptacles of the wealth of the deified Nero. Thou 
mayst easily spare out of those piles enough to make Calenus 
among the richest priests of Pompeii, and yet not miss the 
loss.” 

“Come, Calenus,” said Arbaces, winningly, and with a 
frank and generous air, “thou art an old friend, and hast been 
a faithful servant. Thou canst have no wish to take away 
my life, nor I a desire to stint thy reward: thou shalt descend 
with me to that treasury thou referrest to; thou shalt feast 
thine eyes with the blaze of uncounted gold and the sparkle of 
priceless gems; and thou shalt, for thy own reward, bear away 
with thee this night as much as thou canst conceal beneath thy 
robes. Nay, when thou hast once seen what thy friend possesses, 
thou wilt learn how foolish it would be to injure one who has 
so much to bestow. When Glaucus is no more, thou shalt 
pay the treasury another visit. Speak I frankly and as a 
friend ? ” 

“Oh, greatest, best of men,” cried Calenus, almost weeping 
with joy, “canst thou thus forgive my injurious doubts of 
thy justice, thy generosity ? ” 

“Hush! one other turn, and we will descend to the Deenh 
arches.” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 123 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THE SLAVE CONSULTS THE ORACLE. — THEY WHO BLIND THEM- 
SELVES THE BLIND MAY FOOL,-—-TWO NEW PRISONERS 
MADE IN ONE NIGHT. 


ImMPATIENTLY Nydia awaited the arrival of the no less 
anxious Sosia. Fortifying his courage by plentiful potations 
of a better liquor than that provided for the demon, the credu- 
lous ministrant stole into the blind girl’s chamber. 

“Well, Sosia, and art thou prepared? Hast thou the bowl 
of pure water?” 

“Verily, yes; but I tremble a little. You are sure I shall 
not see the demon? I have heard that these gentlemen are 
by no means of a handsome person or a civil demeanor.” 

“Be assured. And hast thou left the garden gate gently 
open ?” 

“Yes; and placed some beautiful nuts and apples on a Little 
table close by.” 

“That’s well. And the gate is open now, so that the demon 
may pass through it?” 

“Surely it is.” 

“Well, then, open this door; there—leave it just ajar. 
And now, Sosia, give me the lamp.” 

“What, you will not extinguish it ?” 

“No; but I must breathe my spell over its ray. There is a 
spirit in fire. Seat, thyself.” 

The slave obeyed; and Nydia, after bending for some 
moments silently over the lamp, rose, and in a low voice 
chanted the following rude 


INVOCATION TO THE SPECTRE OF THE ATR. 


Loved alike by Air and Water 

Aye must be Thessalia’s daughter ; 

To us, Olympian hearts, are given 
Spells that draw the moon from heaven, 


424 


“The spectre zs certainly coming,” said Sosia. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


All that Egypt’s learning wrought, 
All that Persia’s Magian taught, — 


Won from song, or wrung from flowers, 
Or whisper’d low by fiend, are ours. 


Spectre of the viewless air! 

Hear the blind Thessalian’s prayer! 
By Erictho’s art, that shed 

Dews of life when life was fled ; 

By lone Ithaca’s wise king, 

Who could wake the crystal spring 
To the voice of prophecy ; 

By the lost Eurydice, 

Summon’d from the shadowy throng 
At the muse-son’s magic song ; 

By the Colchian’s awful charms, 


When fair-haired Jason left her arms ; — 


Spectre of the airy halls, 

One who owns thee duly calls! 

Breathe along the brimming bowl, 

And instruct the fearful soul 

In the shadowy things that lie 

Dark in dim futurity. 

Come, wild demon of the air, 

Answer to thy votary’s prayer! 
Come, oh, come! 


And no god on heaven or earth, — 

Not the Paphian Queen of Mirth, 

Nor the vivid Lord of Light, : 

Nor the triple Maid of Night, 

Nor the Thunderer’s self shall be 

Blest and honor’d more than thee! 
Come, oh, come! 


running along my hair!” 
“Place thy bowl of water on the ground. Now, then, give 
me thy napkin, and let me fold up thy face and eyes.” 
“ Ay! that’s always the custom with these charms. Not so 


tight, though; gently, gently.” 


“There; thou canst not see ?” 


“See, by Jupiter! No, nothing but darkness.” 


“T feel him 


“ Address, then, to the spectre whatever question thou 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 125 


wouldst ask him, in a low-whispered voice, three times. If 
thy question is answered in the affirmative, thou wilt hear the 
water ferment and bubble before the demon breathes upon it; 
if in the negative, the water will be quite silent.” 

“But you will not play any trick with the water, eh?” 

“Tet me place the bowl under thy feet—so. Now thou 
wilt perceive that I cannot touch it without thy knowledge.” 

“Very fair. Now then, O Bacchus, befriend me! Thou 
knowest that I have always loved thee better than all the 
other gods, and I will dedicate to thee that silver cup I stole 
last year from the burly carptor [butler], if thou wilt but 
befriend me with this water-loving demon. And thou, O 
Spirit, listen and hear me! ShallI be enabled to purchase my 
freedom next year? Thou knowest; for, as thou livest in the 
air, the birds? have doubtless acquainted thee with every secret 
of this house: thou knowest that I have filched and pilfered 
all that I honestly — that is, safely —could lay finger upon 
for the last three years, and I yet want two thousand sesterces 
of the fullsum. Shall I be able, O good Spirit, to make up 
the deficiency in the course of this year? Speak. Ha! does 
the water bubble? No; all is as stillasatomb. Well, then, 
if not this year, in two years? Ah,I hear something; the 
demon is scratching at the door; he’ll be here presently. In 
two years, my good fellow? Come, now, two; that’s a very 
reasonable time. What! dumb still? Two years and a half — 
three —four? Ill fortune to you, friend demon! You are no 
lady, that’s clear, or you would not keep silence so long. 
Five — six — sixty years ? and may Pluto seize you! I’ll ask 
no more.” And Sosia, in a rage, kicked down the water over 
his legs. He then, after much fumbling, and more cursing, 
managed to extricate his head from the napkin in which it was 
completely folded, stared round, and discovered that he was 
in the dark, 

“What, ho! Nydia; the lamp is gone. Ah, traitress; and 
thou art gone, too; but I’ll catch thee; thou shalt smart for 
this !” 

- 1 Who are supposed to know all secrets. The same superstition prevails 
in the East, and is not without example, also, in our Northern legends. 


126 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


The slave groped his way to the door; it was bolted from 
without: he was a prisoner instead of Nydia. What could he 
do? He did not dare to knock loud—to call out — lest 
Arbaces should overhear him, and discover how he had been 
duped; and Nydia, meanwhile, had probably already gained 
the garden gate and was fast on her escape. 

“But,” thought he, “she will go home, or at least be some- 
where in the city. To-morrow, at dawn, when the slaves are 
at work in the peristyle, I can make myself heard; then I can - 
go forth and seek her. I shall be sure to find and bring her 
back before Arbaces knows a word of the matter. Ah! that’s 
the best plan. Little traitress, my fingers itch at thee: and to 
leave only a bowl of water, too! Had it been wine, it would 
have been some comfort.” 

While Sosia, thus entrapped, was lamenting his fate, and 
revolving his schemes to repossess himself of Nydia, the blind 
girl, with that singular precision and dexterous rapidity of 
motion which, we have before observed, was peculiar to her, 
had passed lightly along the peristyle, threaded the opposite 
passage that led into the garden, and with a beating heart was 
about to proceed towards the gate, when she suddenly heard 
the sound of approaching steps, and distinguished the dreaded 
voice of Arbaces himself. She paused for a moment in doubt 
and terror; then suddenly it flashed across her recollection 
that there was another passage which was little used except 
for the admission of the fair partakers of the Egyptian’s secret 
revels, and which wound along the basement of that massive 
fabric towards a door which also communicated with the gar- 
den. By good fortune it might be open. At that thought she 
hastily retraced her steps, descended the narrow stairs at the 
right, and was soon at the entrance of the passage. Alas! the 
door at the entrance was closed and secured. While she was 
yet assuring herself that it was indeed locked, she heard behind 
her the voice of Calenus, and a,moment after, that of Arbaces 
in low reply. She could not stay there; they were probably 
passing to this very door. She sprang onward, and felt her- 
self in unknown ground. The air grew damp and chill; this 
reassured her. She thought she might be among the cellars of 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 127 


the luxurious mansion, or at least in some rude spot not likely 
to be visited by its haughty lord, when again her quick ear 
caught steps and the sound of voices. On, on, she hurried, 
extending her arms, which now frequently encountered pillars 
of thick and massive form. With a tact, doubled in acuteness 
by her fear, she escaped these perils, and continued her way, 
the air growing more and more damp as she proceeded; yet 
still, as she ever and anon paused for breath, she heard the 
advancing steps and the indistinct murmur of voices. At 
length she was abruptly stopped by a wall that seemed the 
limit of her path. Was there no spot in which she could hide, 
no aperture, no cavity? There was none! She stopped, and 
wrung her hands in despair; then again nerved as the voices 
neared upon her, she hurried on by the side of the wall; and 
coming suddenly against one of the sharp buttresses that here 
and there jutted boldly forth, she fell to the ground. Though 
much bruised, her senses did not leave her; she uttered no cry; 
nay, she hailed the accident that had led her to something like 
a screen; and creeping close up to the angle formed by the 
buttress, so that on one side at least she was sheltered from 
view, she gathered her sight and small form into its smallest 
compass, and breathlessly awaited her fate. 

Meanwhile Arbaces and the priest were taking their way to 
that secret chamber whose stores were so vaunted by the Egyp- 
tian. They were in a vast subterranean atrium, or hall; the 
low roof was supported by short, thick pillars of an architec- 
ture far remote from the Grecian graces of that luxuriant 
period. The single and pale lamp, which Arbaces bore, shed 
but an imperfect ray over the bare and rugged walls, in which 
the huge stones, without cement, were fitted curiously and 
uncouthly into each other. The disturbed reptiles glared 
dully on the intruders, and then crept into the shadow of the 
walls. 

Calenus shivered as he looked ea and breathed the 
damp, unwholesome air. 

“Yet,” said Arbaces, with a smile, perceiving his shudder, 
“it is these rude abodes that furnish the luxuries of the halls 
above. They are like the laborers of the world; we despise 


128 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


their ruggedness, yet they feed the very pride that disdains 
them.” 

“ And whither goes yon dim gallery to the left?” asked 
Calenus; “in this depth of gloom it seems without limit, as if 
winding into Hades.” 

“On the contrary, it does but conduct to the upper day,” 
answered Arbaces, carelessly ; “it is to the right that we steer 
to our bourn.” 

The hall, like many in the more habitable regions of Pom- 
pei, branched off at the extremity into two wings or passages, 
the length of which, not really great, was to the eye consider- 
ably exaggerated by the sullen gloom against which the lamp 
so faintly struggled. To the right of these ale the two com- 
rades now directed their steps. 

“The gay Glaucus will be lodged to-morrow in apartments 
not much drier, and far less spacious than this,” said Calenus, 
as they passed by the very spot where, completely wrapped 
in the shadow of the broad, projecting buttress, cowered the 
Thessalian. 

“ Ay, but then he will have dry room, and ample enough, in 
the arena on the following day. And to think,” continued 
Arbaces slowly, and very deliberately, — “to think that a 
word of thine could save him, and consign Arbaces to his 
doom !” 

“That word shall never be spoken,” said Calenus. 

“Right, my Calenus! it never shall,” returned Arbaces, 
familiarly leaning his arm on the priest’s shoulder ; “and now, 
halt; we are at the door!” 

The light trembled against asmall door deep set in the wall, 
and guarded strongly by many plates and bindings of iron, 
that intersected the rough and dark wood. From his girdle 
Arbaces now drew a small ring, holding three or four short 
but strong keys. Oh, how beat the griping heart of Calenus, 
as he heard the rusty wards growl, as if resenting the admis- 
sion to the treasures they guarded! 

“Enter, my friend,” said Arbaces, “while I hold the lamp 
on high, that thou mayst glut thine eyes on the yellow 
heaps.” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 129 


The impatient Calenus did not wait to be twice invited; he 
hastened towards the aperture. 

Searce had he crossed the threshold, when the strong hand 
of Arbaces plunged him forwards. 

“The word shall never be spoken!” said the Egyptian, with 
a loud, exultant laugh, and closed the door upon the priest. 

Calenus had been precipitated down several steps, but not 
feeling at the moment the pain of his fall, he sprang up again 
to the door, and beating at it fiercely with his clenched fist, he 
cried aloud in what seemed more a beast’s howl than a human 
voice, so keen was his agony and despair: “Oh, release me, 
release me, and I will ask no gold!” 

The words but imperfectly penetrated the massive door, and 
Arbaces again laughed. ‘Then, stamping his foot violently, 
rejoined, perhaps to give vent to his long-stifled passions, — 

“ All the gold of Dalmatia will not buy thee a crust of 
bread. Starve, wretch! thy dying groans will never wake 
even the echo of these vast halls; nor will the air ever re- 
veal, as thou gnawest, in thy desperate famine, thy flesh from 
thy bones, that so perishes the man who threatened, and could 
have undone, Arbaces! Farewell!” 

“Oh, pity —mercy! Inhuman villain, was it for this —” 

The rest of the sentence was lost to the ear of Arbaces as 
he passed backward along the dim hall. A toad, plump and 
bloated, lay unmoving before his path; the rays of the lamp 
fell upon its unshaped hideousness and red upward eye. Ar- 
baces turned aside that he might not harm it. 

“Thou art loathsome and obscene,” he muttered, “but thou 
canst not injure me; therefore thou art safe in my path.” 

The cries of Calenus, dulled and choked by the barrier that 
confined him, yet faintly reached the ear of the Egyptian. He 
paused and listened intently. 

“This is unfortunate,” thought he; “for I cannot sail till 
that voice is dumb forever. My stores and treasures lie, not 
in yon dungeon, it is true, but in the opposite wing. My 
slaves, as they move them, must not hear his voice. But what 
fear of that? In three days, if he still survive, his accents, 
by my father’s beard, must be weak enough then! No, they 


VOL. 11.—9 


130 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 


could not pierce even through his tomb. By Isis, it is cold! 
I long for a deep draught of the spiced Falernian.” 

With that the remorseless Egyptian drew his gown closer 
round him, and resought the upper air. 


CHAPTER XIV. 
NYDIA ACCOSTS CALENUS. 


Wuar words of terror, yet of hope, had Nydia overheard! 
The next day Glaucus was to be condemned; yet there lived 
one who could save him, and adjudge Arbaces to his doom, 
and that one breathed within a few steps of her hiding-place ! 
She caught his cries and shrieks, his imprecations, his prayers, 
though they fell choked and muffled on her ear. He was im- 
prisoned, but she knew the secret of his cell: could she but 
escape, could she but seek the pretor, he might yet in time 
be given to light, and preserve the Athenian. Her emotions 
almost stifled her; her brain reeled, she felt her sense give 
way, but by a violent effort she mastered herself; and, after 
listening intently for several minutes, till she was convinced 
that Arbaces had left the space to solitude and herself, she 
crept on as her ear guided her to the very door that had 
closed upon Calenus. Here she more distinctly caught his 
accents of terror and despair. Thrice she attempted to speak, 
and thrice her voice failed to penetrate the folds of the heavy 
door. At length, finding the lock, she applied her lips to its 
small aperture, and the prisoner distinctly heard a soft tone 
breathe his name. 

His blood curdled, his hair stood on end. That awful soli- 
tude what mysterious and preternatural being could pene- 
trate! ‘“Who’s there?” he cried in new alarm; “ What 
spectre, what dread darva, calls upon the lost Calenus ?” 

“Priest,” replied the Thessalian, “unknown to Arbaces, I 
have been, by the permission of the gods, a witness to his per- 
fidy. If I myself can escape from these walls, I may save 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 181 


thee. But let thy voice reach my ear through this narrow 
passage, and answer what I ask.” 

‘Ah, blessed spirit,” said the priest, exultingly, and obey- 
ing the suggestion of Nydia, “save me, and I will sell the 
very cups on the altar to pay thy kindness.” 

“T want not thy gold, I want thy secret. Did I hear 
aright? Canst thou save the Athenian Glaucus from the 
charge against his life ?” 

“T can; I can; therefore (may the Furies blast the foul 
Egyptian!) hath Arbaces snared me thus, and left me to 
starve and rot!” 

“They accuse the Athenian of murder: canst thou disprove 
the accusation ? ” 

“Only free me, and the proudest head of Pompeii is not 
more safe than his. I saw the deed done; I saw Arbaces 
strike the blow; I can convict the true murderer and acquit 
the innocent man. But if I perish, he dies also. Dost thou 
interest thyself for him? Oh, blessed stranger, in my heart 
is the urn which condemns or frees him!” 

“ And thou wilt give full evidence of what thou knowest ?” 

“Will? Oh, were hell at my feet— yes! Revenge on 
the false Egyptian, — revenge! revenge! revenge!” 

As through ‘his ground teeth Calenus shrieked forth those 
last words, Nydia felt that in his worst passions was her cer- 
tainty of his justice to the Athenian. Her heart beat: was it 
to be her proud destiny to preserve her idolized, her adored ? 
“Enough,” said she; “the powers that conducted me hither 
will carry me through all. Yes, I feel that I shall deliver 
thee. Wait in patience and hope.” 

“But be cautious, be prudent, sweet stranger. Attempt not 
to appeal to Arbaces; he is marble. Seek the pretor, say 
what thou knowest, obtain his writ of search; bring soldiers, 
and smiths of cunning; these locks are wondrous strong! 
Time flies: I may starve — starve, if you are not quick! Go, 
go! Yet stay; it is horrible to be alone! the air is like a 
charnel; and the scorpions, — ha! and the pale larve. Oh! 
stay, stay!” 

“Nay,” said Nydia, terrified by the terror of the priest, 


132 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPET. 


and anxious to confer with herself, —“‘nay, for thy sake I 
must depart. Take Hope for thy companion: farewell!” 

So saying, she glided away, and felt with extended arms 
along the pillared space until she had gained the farther end 
of the hall and the mouth of the passage that led to the upper 
air. But there she paused; she felt that it would be more 
safe to wait a while, until the night was so far blended with 
the morning that the whole house would be buried in sleep, 
and so that she might quit it unobserved. She therefore — 
once more laid herself down, and counted the weary moments. 
In her sanguine heart, joy was the predominant emotion. 
Glaucus was in deadly peril; but she should save him! 


CHAPTER XY. 


ARBACES AND IONE. — NYDIA GAINS THE GARDEN. — WILL 
SHE ESCAPE AND SAVE THE ATHENIAN ? 


Wuen Arbaces had warmed his veins by large draughts of 
that spiced and perfumed wine so valued by the luxurious, he 
felt more than usually elated and exultant of heart. There is 
a pride in triumphant ingenuity, not less felt, perhaps, though 
its object be guilty. Our vain human nature hugs itself in 
the consciousness of superior craft and self-obtained success : 
afterwards comes the horrible reaction of remorse. 

But remorse was not a feeling which Arbaces was likely 
ever to experience for the fate of the base Calenus. He 
swept from his remembrance the thought of the priest’s ago- 
nies and lingering death: he felt only that a great danger 
was passed, and a possible foe silenced; all left to him now 
would be to account to the priesthood for the disappearance 
of Calenus; and this he imagined it would not be difficult to 
do. Calenus had often been employed by him in various 
religious missions to the neighboring cities. On some such 
errand he could now assert that he had been sent, with offer- 
ings to the shrines of Isis at Herculaneum and Neapolis, 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 133 


placatory of the goddess for the recent murder of her priest 
Apezecides. When Calenus had expired, his body might be 
thrown, previous to the Egyptian’s departure from Pompeii, 
into the deep stream of the Sarnus; and when discovered, 
suspicion would probably fall upon the Nazarene atheists, as 
an act of revenge for the death of Olinthus at the arena. 
After rapidly running over these plans for screening himself, 
Arbaces dismissed at once from his mind all recollection of 
the wretched priest; and, animated by the success which had 
lately crowned all his schemes, he surrendered his thoughts 
to Ione. The last time he had seen her, she had driven him 
from her presence by a reproachful and bitter scorn, which 
his arrogant nature was unable to endure. He now felt 
emboldened once more to renew that interview; for his pas- 
sion for her was like similar feelings in other men: it made 
him restless for her presence, even though in that presence 
he was exasperated and humbled. From delicacy to her 
grief he laid not aside his dark and unfestive robes, but 
renewing the perfumes on his raven locks, and arranging his 
tunic in its most becoming folds, he sought the chamber of 
the Neapolitan. Accosting the slave in attendance without, 
he inquired if Ione had yet retired to rest; and learning that 
she was still up, and unusually quiet and composed, he ven- 
tured into her presence. He found his beautiful ward sitting 
before a small table, and leaning her face upon both her hands 
in the attitude of thought. Yet the expression of the face 
itself possessed not its wonted bright and Psyche-like expres- 
sion of sweet intelligence ; the lips were apart, the eye vacant 
and unheeding, and the long dark hair, falling neglected and 
dishevelled upon her neck, gave by the contrast additional 
paleness to a cheek which had already lost the roundness of 
its contour. 

Arbaces gazed upon her a moment ere he advanced. She, 
too, lifted up her eyes; and when she saw who was the in- 
truder, shut them with an expression of pain, but did not stir. 

“ Ah!” said Arbaces, in a low and earnest tone, as he re- 
spectfully, nay, humbly, advanced and seated himself at a 
little distance fron the table,— “ah! that my death could 


154 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


remove thy hatred, then would I gladly die! Thou wrongest 
me, Ione; but I will bear the wrong without a murmur, only 
let me see thee sometimes. Chide, reproach, scorn me, if thou 
wilt; I will teach myself to bear it. And is not even thy bit- 
terest tone sweeter to me than the music of the most artful 
lute? In thy silence the world seems to stand still; a stag- 
nation curdles up the veins of the earth: there is no earth, no 
life, without the light of thy countenance and the melody of 

thy voice.” ; 

“Give me back my brother and my betrothed,” said Ione, 
in a calm and imploring tone; and a few large tears rolled 
unheeded down her cheeks. 

“ Would that I could restore the one and save the other!” 
returned Arbaces, with apparent emotion. “Yes; to make 
thee happy I would renounce my ill-fated love, and gladly join 
thy hand to the Athenian’s. Perhaps he will yet come un- 
scathed from his trial [Arbaces had prevented her learning 
that the trial had already commenced]; if so, thou art free to 
judge or condemn him thyself. And think not, O Ione, that I 
would follow thee longer with a prayer of love. I know it is 
in vain. Suffer me only to weep —to mourn with thee. For- 
give a violence deeply repented, and that shall offend no more. 
Let me be to thee only what I once was, — a friend, a father, 
a protector. Ah, Ione, spare me and forgive!” 

“J forgive thee. Save but Glaucus, and I will renounce 
him. O mighty Arbaces! thou art powerful in evil or in 
gsood: save the Athenian, and the poor Ione will never see 
him more.” As she spoke, she rose with weak and trembling 
limbs, and falling at his feet she clasped his knees: “Oh, if 
thou really lovest me, if thou art human, remember my 
father’s ashes, remember my childhood, think of all the hours 
we passed happily together, and save my Glaucus!” 

Strange convulsions shook the frame of the Egyptian; his 
features worked fearfully: he turned his face aside, and said, 
in a hollow voice, “If I could save him even now, I would; 
but the Roman law is stern and sharp. Yet if I could succeed, 
if I could rescue and set him free, wouldst thou be mine, — my 
bride ? ” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 185 


“Thine!” repeated Ione, rising: “thine! thy bride? My 
brother’s blood is unavenged: who slew him? O Nemesis! 
ean I even sell, for the hfe of Glaucus, thy solemn trust? 
Arbaces — thine? Never.” 

“Tone, Ione!” cried Arbaces, passionately, “why these 
mysterious words; why dost thou couple my name with the 
_ thought of thy brother’s death?” 

“My dreams couple it, and dreams are from the gods.” 

‘Vain fantasies all! Is it for a dream that thou wouldst 
wrong the innocent, and hazard thy sole chance of saving thy 
lover’s life ?” 

‘“ Hear me!” said Ione, speaking firmly, and with a delib- 
erate and solemn voice. “If Glaucus be saved by thee, I will 
never be borne to his home a bride. But I cannot master the 
horror of other rites: I cannot wed with thee. Interrupt me 
not; but mark me, Arbaces! If Glaucus die, on that same day 
IT baffle thine arts, and leave to thy love only my dust! Yes, 
thou mayst put the knife and the poison from my reach; thou 
mayst imprison, thou mayst chain me, but the brave soul re- 
solved to escape is never without means. These hands, naked 
and unarmed though they be, shall tear away the bonds of 
life. Fetter them, and these lips shall firmly refuse the air. 
Thou art learned ; thou hast read how women have died rather 
than meet dishonor. If Glaucus perish, I will not unworthily 
linger behind him. By all the gods of the heaven, and the 
ocean, and the earth, I devote myself to death! I have 
said !” i 

High, proud, dilating in her stature, like one inspired, the 
air and voice of Jone struck an awe into the breast of her 
listener. 

“Brave heart!” said he, after a short pause, “thou art in- 
deed worthy to be mine. Oh that I should have dreamt of 
such a. partner in my lofty destinies, and never found it but 
in thee! Ione,” he continued rapidly, “ dost thou not see that 
we are born for each other? Canst thou not recognize some- 
thing kindred to thine own energy, thine own courage, in 
this high and self-dependent soul? We were formed to 
unite our sympathies; formed to breathe a new spirit into this 


136 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


hackneyed and gross world; formed for the mighty ends 
which my soul, sweeping down the gloom of time, foresees 
with a prophet’s vision. With a resolution equal to thine 
own I defy thy threats of an inglorious suicide. I hail thee 
as my own! Queen of climes undarkened by the eagle’s 
wing, unravaged by his beak, I bow before thee in homage 
and in awe; but I claim thee in worship and in love! To- 
gether will we cross the ocean; together will we found our 
realm; and far distant ages shall acknowledge the long race 
of kings born from the marriage-bed of Arbaces and Ione!” 

“Thou ravest! These mystic declamations are suited rather 
to some palsied crone selling charms in the market-place than 
to the wise Arbaces. Thou hast heard my resolution, —it is 
fixed as the Fates themselves. Orcus has heard my vow, and 
it is written in the book of the unforgetful Hades. Atone, 
then, O Arbaces, atone the past: convert hatred into regard, 
vengeance into gratitude; preserve one who shall never be thy 
rival. These are acts suited to thy original nature, which 
gives forth sparks of something high and noble. They weigh 
in the scales of the Kings of Death; they turn the balance on 
that day when the disembodied soul stands shivering and dis- 
mayed between Tartarus and Elysium; they gladden the heart 
in life, better and longer than the reward of a momentary 
passion. Oh, Arbaces, hear me, and be swayed!” 

“Enough, Ione. All that I can do for Glaucus shall be done; 
but blame me not if I fail. Inquire of my foes, even, if I have 
not sought, if I do not seek, to turn aside the sentence from his 
head, and judge me accordingly. Sleep, then, Ione. Night 
wanes ; I leave thee to its rest, —and mayst thou have kinder 
dreams of one who has no existence but in thine.” 

Without waiting a reply, Arbaces hastily withdrew, afraid, 
perhaps, to trust himself further to the passionate prayer of 
Jone, which racked him with jealousy, even while it touched 
him to compassion. But compassion itself came too late. Had 
Ione even pledged him her hand as his reward, he could not 
now, his evidence given, the populace excited, have saved the 
Athenian. Still, made sanguine by his very energy of mind, 
he threw himself on the chances of the future, and believed he 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL ~ 187 


should yet triumph over the woman that had so entangled his 
passions. 

As his attendants assisted to unrobe him for the night, the 
thought of Nydia flashed across him. He felt it was necessary 
that Ione should never learn of her lover’s frenzy, lest it might 
excuse his imputed crime; and it was possible that her attend- 
— ants might inform her that Nydia was under his roof, and she 

might desire to see her. As this idea crossed him, he turned 
to one of his freedmen, — 

“Go, Callias,” said he, “forthwith to Sosia, and tell him that 
_on no pretence is he to suffer the blind slave Nydia out of her 
chamber. But stay! first seek those in attendance upon my 
ward, and caution them not to inform her that the blind girl is 
under my roof. Go, quick!” 

The freedman hastened to obey. After having discharged 
‘his commission with respect to Ione’s attendants, he sought 
the worthy Sosia. He found him not in the little cell which 
was apportioned for his cubiculum; he called his name aloud, 
and from Nydia’s chamber, close at hand, he heard the voice 
of Sosia reply, — 

“Oh, Callias, is it you that I hear? The gods be praised! 
‘Open the door, I pray you!” 

Callias withdrew the bolt, and the rueful face of Sosia hastily 
obtruded itself. 

“ What! in the chamber with that young girl, Sosia! Proh 
pudor! Are there not fruits ripe enough on the wall, but that 
thou must tamper with such green —” 

‘Name not the little witch !” interrupted Sosia, impatiently ; 
“she will be my, ruin!” And he forthwith imparted to 
Callias the history of the Air Demon, and the escape of the 
Thessalian. 

“Hang thyself, then, unhappy Sosia! I am just charged 
from Arbaces with a message to thee; on no account art thou 
to suffer her, even for a moment, from that chamber!” 

“ Me miserum/” exclaimed the slave. “What can I do? 
By this time she may have visited half Pompeii. But to- 
morrow I will undertake to catch her in her old haunts. 
Keep but my counsel, my dear Callias.” | 


158 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“TJ will do all that friendship can, consistent with my own 
safety. But are you sure she has left the house ? She may be 
hiding here yet.” 

‘How is that possible? She could easily sea gained the 
garden; and the door, as I told thee, was open.” 

“Nay, not so! for at that very hour thou specifiest, eres 
was in the garden with the priest Calenus. I went there in 
search of some herbs for my master’s bath to-morrow. I saw 
the table set out; but the gate I am sure was shut: depend 
upon it, that Calenus entered by the garden, and naturally 
closed the door after him.” 

“But it was not locked.” 

“Yes; for I myself, angry at a negligence which might 
expose the bronzes in the peristyle to the mercy of any robber, 
turned the key, took it away, and, as I did not see the proper 
slave to whom to give it, or I should have rated him finely, 
here it actually is, still in my girdle.” 

“© merciful Bacchus! I did not pray to thee in vain, 
after all. Let us not losea moment! Let us to the garden 
instantly ; she may yet be there!” 

The good-natured Callias consented to assist the slave; and 
after vainly searching the chambers at hand, and the recesses 
of the peristyle, they entered the garden. 

It was about this time that Nydia had resolved to quit her 
hiding-place, and venture forth on her way. Lightly, tremu- 
lously holding her breath, which ever and anon broke forth in 
quick convulsive gasps, now gliding by the flower-wreathed 
columns that bordered the peristyle, now darkening the still 
moonshine that fell over its tessellated centre, now ascending 
the terrace of the garden, now gliding amidst the gloomy 
and breathless trees, she gained the fatal door, to find it 
locked! We have all seen that expression of pain, of uncer- 
tainty, of fear, which a sudden disappointment of touch, if I 
may use the expression, casts over the face of the blind. But 
what words can paint the intolerable woe, the sinking of the 
whole heart, which was now visible on the features of the 
Thessalian? Again and again her small, quivering hands 
wandered to and fro the inexorable door. Poor thing that 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 139 


thou wert! in vain had been all thy noble courage, thy inno- 
cent craft, thy doublings to escape the hound and huntsmen! 
Within but a few yards from thee, laughing at thy endeavors, 
thy despair, knowing thou wert now their own, and watching 
with’ cruel patience their own moment to seize their prey, — 
thou art saved from seeing thy pursuers ! 

“Hush, Callias! let her go on. Let us see what she will do 
when she has convinced herself that the door is honest.” 

“Took! she raises her face to the heavens, she mutters, 
sher sinks down despondent! No! by Pollux, she has some 
new scheme! She will not resign herself! By Jupiter, a 
tough spirit! See, she springs up, she retraces her steps, she 
thinks of some other chance! I advise thee, Sosia, to delay no 
longer: seize her ere she quit the garden; now!” 

“Ah! runaway! I have thee, eh?” said Sosia, seizing upon 
the unhappy Nydia. 

As a hare’s last human cry in the fangs of the dogs, as 
the sharp voice of terror uttered by a sleep-walker suddenly 
awakened, broke the shriek of the blind girl when she felt 
the abrupt gripe of her jailer. It was a shriek of such utter 
agony, such entire despair, that it might have rung hauntingly 
in your ears forever. She felt as if the last plank of the sink- 
ing Glaucus were torn from his clasp! It had been a suspense 
of life and death ; and death had now won the game. 

“Gods! that cry will alarm the house! Arbaces sleeps 
full lightly. Gag her!” cried Callias. 

¢ Ah! here is the very napkin with which the young witch 
conjured away my reason! Come, that’s right; now thou art 
dumb as well as blind.” 

And, catching the light weight in his arms, Sosia soon 
gained the house, and reached the chamber from which Nydia 
had escaped. ‘There, removing the gag, he left her to a soli- 
tude so racked and terrible, that out of Hades its anguish 
could scarcely be exceeded. 


140 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


THE SORROW OF BOON COMPANIONS FOR OUR AFFLICTIONS. — 
THE DUNGEON AND ITS VICTIMS. 


Ir was now late on the third and last day of the trial of 
Glaucus and Olinthus. A few hours after the court had 
broken up and judgment been given, a small party of ,the 
fashionable youth at Pompeii were assembled round the fas- 
tidious board of Lepidus. 

“So Glaucus denies his crime to the last ?” said Clodius. 

“Yes; but the testimony of Arbaces was convincing: he 
saw the blow given,” answered Lepidus. 

“ What could have been the cause ?” 

“Why, the priest was a gloomy and sullen fellow. He 
probably rated Glaucus soundly about his gay life and gam- 
ing habits, and ultimately swore he would not consent to his 
marriage with Ione. High words arose; Glaucus seems to 
have been full of the passionate god, and struck in sudden 
exasperation. The excitement of wine, the desperation of 
abrupt remorse, brought on the delirium under which he suf- 
fered for some days; and I can readily imagine, poor fellow! 
that, yet confused by that delirium, he is even now uncon- 
scious of the crime he committed! Such, at least, is the 
shrewd conjecture of Arbaces, who seems to have been most 
kind and forbearing in his testimony.” 

“Yes; he has made himself generally popular by it. But, 
in consideration of these extenuating circumstances, the senate 
should have relaxed the sentence.” 

“ And they would have done so but for the people; but they 
were outrageous. The priest had spared no pains to excite 
them; and they imagined—the ferocious brutes !— because 
Glaucus was a rich man and a gentleman, that he was likely 
to escape; and therefore they were inveterate against him, 
and doubly resolved upon his sentence. It seems, by some 
accident or other, that he was never formerly enrolled as a 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 141 


Roman citizen; and thus the senate is deprived of the power 
to resist the people, though, after all, there was but a majority 
of three against him. Ho! the Chian!” 

“He looks sadly altered; but how composed and fearless!” 

“Ay, we shall see if his firmness will last over to-morrow. 
But what merit in courage, when that atheistical hound, Olin- 
thus, manifested the same ? ” 

“The blasphemer! Yes,” said Lepidus, with pious wrath, 
“no wonder that one of the decurions was, but two days ago, 
struck dead by lightning in a serene sky.! The gods feel 
vengeance against Pompeii while the vile desecrator is alive 
within its walls.” 

“Yet so lenient was the senate, that had he but expressed 
his penitence, and scattered a few grains of incense on the 
altar of Cybele, he would have been let off. I doubt whether 
these Nazarenes, had they the state religion, would be as tol- 
erant to us, supposing we had kicked down the image of their . 
Deity, blasphemed their rites, and denied their faith.” 

“They give Glaucus one chance, in consideration of the 
circumstances; they allow him, against the lion, the use of the 
same stilus wherewith he smote the priest.” 

“‘ Hast thou seen the lion? Hast thou looked at his teeth 
and fangs, and wilt thou call that a chance? Why, sword and 
buckler would be mere reed and papyrus against the rush of 
the mighty beast! No, I think the true mercy has been, not 
to leave him long in suspense; and it was therefore fortunate 
for him that our benign laws are slow to pronounce, but swift 
to execute; and that the games of the amphitheatre had been, 
by a sort of providence, so long since fixed for to-morrow. He 
who awaits death, dies twice.” 

“As for the Atheist,” said Clodius, “he is to cope the grim 
tiger naked-handed. Well, these combats are past betting on. 
Who will take the odds ?” 

A peal of laughter announced the ridicule of the question. 

‘Poor Clodius!” said the host, “to lose a friend is some- 


1 Pliny says that, immediately before the eruption of Vesuvius, one of the 
decuriones municipales was — though the heaven was unclouded — struck dead 
by lightning. 


142 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


thing; but to find no one to bet on the chance of his escape is 
a worse misfortune to thee.” 

“Why, it is provoking; it would have been some consola- 
tion to him and to me to think he was useful to the last.” 

“The people,” said the grave Pansa, “are all delighted with 
the result. They were so much afraid the sports at the am- 
phitheatre would go off without a criminal for the beasts: 
and now, to get two such criminals is indeed a joy for the 
poor fellows! They work hard; they ought to have some 
amusement.” 

“There speaks the popular Pansa, who never moves with- 
out a string of clients as long as an Indian triumph. He is 
always prating about the people. Gods! he will end by being 
a Gracchus! ” 

“Certainly Iam no insolent patrician,” said Pansa, with a 
generous alr. 

“ Well,” observed Lepidus, “it would have been assuredly 
dangerous to have been merciful at the eve of a beast-fight. 
If ever J, though a Roman bred and born, come to be tried, 
pray Jupiter there may be either no beasts in the vivaria, 
or plenty of criminals in the jail.” 

“And pray,” said one of the party, “what has become of 
the poor girl whom Glaucus was to have married? A widow 
without being a bride, — that is hard!” 

“Oh,” returned Clodius, “she is safe under the protection 
of her guardian, Arbaces. It was natural she should go to 
him when she had lost both lover and brother.” 

“By sweet Venus, Glaucus was fortunate among the women! 
They say the rich Julia was in love with him.” 

“A mere fable, my friend,” said Clodius, coxcombically ; 
“TY was with her to-day. If any feeling of the sort she ever 
conceived, I flatter myself that I have consoled her.” 

“Hush, gentlemen!” said Pansa; “do you not know that 
Clodius is employed at the house of Diomed in blowing hard 
at the torch? It begins to burn, and will soon shine bright 
on the shrine of Hymen.” 

“Ts it so?” said Lepidus. “What! Clodius become a 
married man? Fie!” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPET. 143 


“‘ Never fear,” answered Clodius; “old Diomed is delighted 
at the notion of marrying his daughter to a nobleman, and 
will come down largely with the sesterces. You will see that 
I shall not lock them up in the atrium. It will be a white 
day for his jolly friends, when Clodius marries an heiress.” 

“Say you so?” cried Lepidus; “come, then, a full cup to 
the health of the fair Julia!” 

While such was the conversation, — one not discordant to 
the tone of mind common among the dissipated of that day, 
and which might perhaps, a century ago, have found an echo 
in the looser circles of Paris, — while such, I say, was the con- 
versation in the gaudy triclinium of Lepidus, far different the 
scene which scowled before the young Athenian. 

After his condemnation, Glaucus was admitted no more to 
the gentle guardianship of Sallust, the only friend of his dis- 
tress. He was led along the forum till the guards stopped at 
a small dvor by the side of the temple of Jupiter. You may 
see the place still. The door opened in the centre in a some- 
what singular fashion, revolving round on its hinges, as it 
were, like a modern turnstile, so as only to leave half the 
threshold open at the same time. Through this narrow aper- 
ture they thrust the prisoner, placed before him a loaf and a 
pitcher of water, and left him to darkness, and, as he thought, 
to solitude. So sudden had been that revolution of fortune 
which had prostrated him from the palmy height of youthful 
pleasure and successful love to the lowest abyss of ignominy 
and the horror of a most bloody death, that he could scarcely 
convince himself that he was not held in the meshes of some 
fearful dream. His elastic and glorious frame had triumphed 
over a potion, the greater part of which he had fortunately 
not drained. He had recovered sense and consciousness, but 
still a dim and misty depression clung to his nerves and dark- 
ened his mind. His natural courage, and the Greek nobility 
of pride, enabled him to vanquish all unbecoming apprehen- 
sion, and, in the judgment-court, to face his awful lot with a 
steady mien and unquailing eye. But the consciousness of 
innocence scarcely sufficed to support him when the gaze of 
men no longer excited his haughty valor, and he was left to 


144 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. — 


Joneliness and silence. He felt the damps of the dungeon 
sink chillingly into his enfeebled frame, — he, the fastidious, 
the luxurious, the refined; he who had hitherto braved no 
hardship and known no sorrow. Beautiful bird that he was! 
why had he left his far and sunny clime, the olive-groves of 
his native hill, the music of immemorial streams? Why had 
he wantoned on his glittering plumage amidst these harsh and 
ungenial strangers, dazzling the eye with his gorgeous hues, 
charming the ear with his blithesome song, thus suddenly to 
be arrested, caged in darkness, a victim and a prey, his gay 
flights forever over, his hymns of gladness forever stilled! 
The poor Athenian! his very faults the exuberance of a gentle 
and joyous nature, how little had his past career fitted him 
for the trials he was destined to undergo! The hoots of the 
mob, amidst whose plaudits he had so often guided his grace- 
ful car and bounding steeds, still rang gratingly in his ear. 
The cold and stony faces of his former friends (the co-mates 
of his merry revels) still rose before his eye. None now were 
by to soothe, to sustain, the admired, the adulated stranger. 
These walls opened but on the dread arena of a violent and 
shameful death. And Ione! of her, too, he had heard naught; 
no encouraging word, no pitying message: she, too, had for- 
saken him; she believed him guilty —and of what crime? 
The murder of a brother! He ground his teeth, he groaned 
aloud, and ever and anon a sharp fear shot across him. In 
that fell and fierce delirium which had so unaccountably seized 
his soul, which had so ravaged the disordered -brain, might he 
not, indeed, unknowing to himself, have committed the crime 
of which he was accused ? Yet, as the thought flashed upon 
him, it was as suddenly checked; for, amidst all the darkness 
of the past, he thought distinctly to recall the dim grove of 
Cybele, the upward face of the pale dead, the pause that he 
had made beside the corpse, and the sudden shock that felled 
him to the earth. He felt convinced of his innocence; and 
yet who, to the latest time, long after his mangled remains 
were mingled with the elements, would believe him guiltless, 
or uphold his fame? As he recalled his interview with Ar- 
baces, and the causes of revenge which had been excited in 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 145 


the heart of that dark and fearful man, he could not but 
believe that he was the victim of some deep-laid and myste- 
rious snare, the clew and train of which he was lost in at- 
tempting to discover; and Ione—Arbaces loved her! Might 
his rival’s success be founded upon his ruin? That thought 
cut him more deeply than all; and his noble heart was more 
_ stung by jealousy than appalled by fear. Again he groaned 
aloud. 

A voice from the recess of the darkness answered that burst 
of anguish. ‘“ Who,” it said, “is my companion in this awful 
hour ? Athenian Glaucus, is it thou ?” 

‘So, indeed, they called me in mine hour of fortune: they 
may have other names forme now. And thy name, stranger ?” 

“ Ts Olinthus, thy co-mate in the prison as the trial.” 

“What! he whom they call the Atheist ? Is it the injus- 
tice of men that hath taught thee to deny the providence of 
the gods?” 

“ Alas!” answered Olinthus, “thou, not IJ, art the true 
Atheist, for thou deniest the sole true God—the unknown 
One —to whom thy Athenian fathers erected an altar. It is 
in this hour that I know my God. He is with me in the dun- 
geon; His smile penetrates the darkness ; on the eve of death 
my heart whispers immortality, and earth recedes from me 
but to bring the weary soul nearer unto heaven.” 

“Tell me,” said Glaucus, abruptly, “did I not hear thy name 
coupled with that of Apzecides in my trial? Dost thou believe 
me guilty ?” | 

“ God alone reads the heart! but my suspicion rested not 
upon thee.” 

“On whom, then ?” 

“Thy accuser, Arbaces.” 

“Ha! thou cheerest me: and wherefore ? ” 

“ Because I know the man’s evil breast, and he had cause to 
fear him who is now dead.” 

With that, Olnthus proceeded to inform Glaucus of those 
details which the reader already knows, — the conversion of 
Apecides, the plan they had proposed for the detection of the 
impostures of the Egyptian priestcraft, and of the seductions 

VOL. 11.— 10 


146 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


practised by Arbaces upon the youthful weakness of the pros- 
elyte. “Therefore,” concluded Olinthus, “had the deceased 
encountered Arbaces, reviled his treasons, and threatened de- 
tection, the place, the hour, might have favored the wrath of 
the Egyptian, and passion and craft alike dictated the fatal 
blow.” | 

“Tt must have been so!” cried Glaucus, joyfully. “I am 
happy.” 

“Yet what, O unfortunate ! avails to thee now the discovery ? 
Thou art condemned and fated; and in thine innocence thou 
wilt perish.” 

“But I shall know myself guiltless; and in my mysterious 
madness I had fearful, though momentary, doubts. Yet tell 
me, man of a strange creed, thinkest thou that for small errors, 
or for ancestral faults, we are forever abandoned and accursed 
by the powers above, whatever name thou ailottest to them ?” 

“God is just, and abandons not His creatures for their 
mere human frailty. God is merciful, and curses none but 
the wicked who repent not.” 

‘Yet it seemeth to me as if, in the divine anger, I had been 
smitten by a sudden madness, a supernatural and solemn 
frenzy, wrought not by human means.” 

“There are demons on earth,” answered the Nazarene, fear- 
fully, “as well as there are God and His Son in heaven; and 
since thou acknowledgest not the last, the first may have had 
power over thee.” 

Glaucus did not reply, and there was a silence for some min- 
utes. At length the Athenian said, in a changed and soft 
and half-hesitating voice, “Christian, believest thou, among 
the doctrines of thy creed, that the dead live again; that they 
who have loved here are united hereafter; that beyond the 
erave our good name shines pure from the mortal mists that 
unjustly dim it in the gross-eyed world; and that the streams 
which are divided by the desert and the rock meet in the sol- 
emn Hades, and flow once more into one ? ” 

“Believe I that, O Athenian? No, I do not believe —I 
know / and it is that beautiful and blessed assurance which 
supports me now. O Cyllene!” continued Olinthus, passion- 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 147 


ately. “bride of my heart! torn from me in the first month of 
our nuptials, shall I not see thee yet, and ere many days be 
past ? Welcome, welcome death, that will bring me to heaven 
and thee!” 

There was something in this sudden burst of human affection 
which struck a kindred chord in the soul of the Greek. He 
- felt, for the first time, a sympathy greater than mere affliction 
between him and his companion. He crept nearer towards 
Olinthus; for the Italians, fierce in some points, were not un- 
necessarily cruel in others; they spared the separate cell and 
the superfluous chain, and allowed the victims of the arena the 
sad comfort of such freedom and such companionship as the 
prison would afford. 

“ Yes,” continued the Christian with holy fervor, “the im- 
mortality of the soul, the resurrection, the reunion of the 
dead, is the great principle of our creed; the great truth a 
God suffered death itself to attest and proclaim. No fabled 
Elysium, no poetic Orcus, but a pure and radiant heritage of 
heaven itself, is the portion of the good.” 

“Tell me, then, thy doctrines, and expound to me thy 
hopes,” said Glaucus, earnestly. 

Olinthus was not slow to obey that prayer; and there —as 
oftentimes in the early ages of the Christian creed — it was in 
the darkness of the dungeon, and over the approach of death, 
that the dawning Gospel shed its soft and consecrating rays. 


CHAPTER XVII. 
A CHANGE FOR GLAUCUS. 


Tnx hours passed in lingering torture over the head of Nydia 
from the time in which she had been replaced in her cell. 

Sosia, as if afraid he should be again outwitted, had refrained 
from visiting her until late in the morning of the following day, 
and then he but thrust in the periodical basket of food and 
wine, and hastily reclosed the door. That day rolled on, and 


148 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Nydia felt herself pent, barred, inexorably confined, when that 
day was the judgment-day of Glaucus, and when her release 
would have saved him! Yet knowing, almost impossible as 
seemed her escape, that the sole chance for the hfe of Glaucus 
rested on her, this young girl, frail, passionate, and acutely 
susceptible as she was, resolved not to give way to a despair 
that would disable her from seizing whatever opportunity 
might occur. She kept her senses whenever, beneath the whirl 
of intolerable thought, they reeled and tottered ; nay, she took 
food and wine that she might sustain her strength — that she 
might be prepared ! 

She revolved scheme after scheme of escape, and was forced 
to dismiss all. Yet Sosia was her only hope, the only instru- 
ment with which she could tamper. He had been superstitious 
in the desire of ascertaining whether he could eventually pur- 
chase his freedom. Blessed gods! might he not be won by the 
bribe of freedom itself? Was she not nearly rich enough to 
purchase it? Her slender arms were covered with bracelets, 
the presents of Ione; and on her neck she yet wore that very 
chain which, it may be remembered, had occasioned her jealous 
quarrel with Glaucus, and which she had afterwards promised 
vainly to wear forever. She waited burningly till Sosia should 
again appear; but as hour after hour passed, and he came not, 
she grew impatient. Every nerve beat with fever; she could 
endure the solitude no longer; she groaned, she shrieked 
aloud, she beat herself against the door. Her cries echoed 
along the hall, and Sosia, in peevish anger, hastened to see 
what was the matter, and silence his prisoner if possible. 

“Ho! ho! what is this?” said he, surlily. “Young slave, 
if thou screamest out thus, we must gag thee again. My 
shoulders will smart for it, if thou art heard by my master.” 

“ Kind Sosia, chide me not; I cannot endure to be so long 
alone,” answered Nydia; “the solitude appalls me. Sit with 
me, I pray, a little while. Nay, fear not that I should attempt 
to escape; place thy seat before the door, Keep thine eye on 
me; I will not stir from this spot.” 

Sosia, who was a considerable gossip himself, was moved by 
this address. He pitied one who had nobody to talk with; it 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 149 


was his case, too; he pitied, and resolved to relieve himself. 
He took the hint of Nydia, placed a stool before the door, 
leaned his back against it, and rephed, — 

“JT am sure I do not wish to be churlish; and so far as a 
little innocent chat goes, I have no objection to indulge you. 
But mind, no tricks; no more conjuring!” 

“No, no; tell me, dear Sosia, what is the hour?” 

“‘Tt is already evening; the goats are going home.” 

“OQ gods! how went the trial ?” 

‘Both condemned !” 

Nydia repressed the shriek. “ Well, well, I thought it would 
be so. When do they suffer?” 

“To-morrow, in the amphitheatre. If it were not for thee, 
little wretch, I should be allowed to go with the rest and 
see it.” 

Nydia leaned back for some moments. Nature could endure 
no more; she had fainted away. But Sosia did not perceive 
it, for it was the dusk of eve, and he was full of his own pri- 
vations. He went on lamenting the loss of so delightful a 
show, and accusing the injustice of Arbaces for singling him 
out from all his fellows to be converted into a jailer; and ere 
he had half finished, Nydia, with a deep sigh, recovered the 
sense of life. 

“Thou sighest, blind one, at my loss! Well, that is some 
comfort. So long as you acknowledge how much you cost me, 
I will endeavor not to grumble. It is hard to be ill-treated, 
and yet not pitied.” 

“ Sosia, how much dost thou require to make up the purchase 
of thy freedom ?” 

“How much? Why, about two thousand sesterces.” 

“The gods be praised! not more? Seest thou these brace- 
lets and this chain? They are well worth double that sum. 
I will give them thee if —” 

“Tempt me not: I cannot release thee. Arbaces is a severe 
and awful master. Who knows but I might feed the fishes of 
the Sarnus? Alas! all the sesterces in the world would not 
buy-me back into life. Better a live dog than a dead lion.” 

“Sosia, thy freedom! ‘Think well! If thou wilt let me out 


150 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


oniy for one little hour—let me out at midnight-- 1 will 
return ere to-morrow’s dawn; nay, thou canst go with me.” 

“No,” said Sosia, sturdily ; “aslave once disobeyed Arbaces, 
and he was never more heard of.” 

“But the law gives a master no power over the life of a 
slave.” 

“The law is very obliging, but more polite than efficient. 
I know that Arbaces always gets the law on his side. Besides, 
if I am once dead, what law can bring me to life again ?” 

Nydia wrung her hands. “Is there no hope, then?” said 
she, convulsively. 

“None of escape till Arbaces gives the word.” 

‘Well, then,” said Nydia, quickly, “thou wilt not, at least, 
refuse to take a letter for me: thy master cannot kill thee 
for that.” 

“To whom ?” 

“The preetor.” 

“To a magistrate? No,—not I. I should be made a wit- 
ness in court, for what I know; and the way they cross- 
examine the slaves is by the torture.” 

“Pardon: I meant not the pretor,—it was a word that 
escaped me unawares: I meant quite another person, —the 
gay Sallust.” 

“Oh! and what want you with him ?” 

“@Glaucus was my master; he purchased me from a cruel 
lord. He alone has been kind tome. He is todie. I shall 
never live happily if I cannot, in this hour of trial and doom, 
let him know that one heart is grateful to him. Sallust is 
his friend; he will convey my message.” 

“T am sure he will do no such thing. Glaucus will 
have enough to think of between this and to-morrow without 
troubling his head about a blind girl.” 

“Man,” said Nydia, rising, “wilt thou become free? Thou 
hast the offer in thy power; to-morrow it will be too late. 
Never was freedom more cheaply purchased. Thou canst 
easily and unmissed leave home: less than half an hour will 
suffice for thine absence. And for such a trifle wilt thou 
refuse liberty ? ” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 151 


Sosia was greatly moved. It was true that the request was 
remarkably silly, but what was that to him? So much the 
better. He could lock the door on Nydia, and if Arbaces 
should learn his absence, the offence was venial, and would 
merit but a reprimand. Yet, should Nydia’s letter contain 
something more than what she had said, — should it speak of 
her imprisonment, as he shrewdly conjectured it would do, — 
what then! It need never be known to Arbaces that he had 
carried the letter. At the worst the bribe was enormous, 
the risk light, the temptation irresistible. He hesitated no 
longer; he assented to the proposal. 

“Give me the trinkets, and I will take the letter. Yet 
stay: thou art a slave, thou hast no right to these orna- 
ments, they are thy master’s.” 

“They were the gifts of Glaucus; he is my master. What 
chance hath he to claim them? Who else will know they are 
in my possession ? ” 

“Enough: I will bring thee the papyrus.” 

‘No, not papyrus, — a tablet of wax and a stilus.” 

Nydia, as the reader will have seen, was born of gentle 
parents. They bad done all to lighten her calamity, and her 
quick intellect seconded their exertions. Despite her blind- 
ness, she had therefore acquired in childhood, though in- 
perfectly, the art to write with a sharp stilus upon waxen 
tablets, in which her exquisite sense of touch came to her aid. 
When the tablets were brought to her, she thus painfully 
traced some words in Greek, the language of her childhood, 
and which almost every Italian of the higher ranks was then 
supposed to know. She carefully wound round the epistle 
the protecting thread, and covered its knot with wax; and 
ere she placed it in the hands of Sosia, she thus addressed 
him : — 

“ Sosia, I am blind and in prison. Thou mayst think to 
deceive me, thou mayst pretend only to take this letter to 
Sallust, thou mayst not fulfil thy charge: but here I sol- 
emnly dedicate thy head to vengeance, thy soul to the infernal 
powers, if thou wrongest thy trust; and I call upon thee to 
place thy right hand of faith in mine, and repeat after me 


152 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


these words: ‘By the ground on which we stand, by the 
elements which contain life and can curse life, by Orcus 
the all-avenging, by the Olympian Jupiter the all-seeing, I 
swear that I will honestly discharge my trust, and faithfully 
deliver into the hands of Sallust this letter! And if I per- 
jure myself in this oath, may the full curses of heaven and 
hell be wreaked upon me!’ Enough! I trust thee: take 
thy reward. It is already dark: depart at once.” 

“Thou art a strange girl, and thou hast frightened me 
terribly ; but it is all very natural: and if Sallust is to be 
found, I give him this letter as I have sworn. By my faith, I 
may have my little peccadilloes! but perjury,—no! I leave 
that to my betters.” 

With this Sosia withdrew, carefully passing the heavy bolt 
athwart Nydia’s door, carefully locking its wards; and, hang- 
ing the key to his girdle, he retired to his own den, enveloped 
himself from head to foot in a huge disguising cloak, and 
slipped out by the back way undisturbed and unseen. 

The streets were thin and empty. He soon gained the house 
of Sallust. The porter bade him leave his letter and be gone; 
for Sallust was so grieved at the condemnation of Glaucus, 
that he could not on any account be disturbed. 

«¢ Nevertheless, I have sworn to give this letter into his own 
hands; do sol must.” And Sosia, well knowing by experience 
that Cerberus loves a sop, thrust some half a dozen sesterces 
into the hand of the porter. 

‘Well, well,” said the latter, relenting, “you may enter if 
you will; but, to tell you the truth, Sallust is drinking him- 
self out of his grief. It is his way when anything disturbs 
him. He orders a capital supper, the best wine, and does not 
give over till everything is out of his head — but the liquor.” 

“An excellent plan, —excellent! Ah, what it is to be rich! 
If I were Sallust, I would have some grief or another every 
day. But just say a kind word for me with the atriensis; I 
see him coming.” 

Sallust was too sad to receive company; he was too sad, 
also, to drink alone; so, as was his wont, he admitted his 
favorite freedman to his entertainment, and a stranger ban- 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 153 


quet never was held; for ever and anon the kind-hearted epi- 
cure sighed, whimpered, wept outright, and then turned with 
double zest to some new dish or his refilled goblet. 

“My good fellow,” said he to his companion, “it was a most 
awful judgment — heigho !—it is not bad that kid,eh? Poor, 
dear Glaucus! what a jaw the lion has too! Ah, ah, ah!” 

And Sallust sobbed loudly; the fit was stopped by a counter- 
action of hiccups. 

“Take a cup of wine,” said the freedman. 

“ A thought too cold; but then how cold Glaucus must be! 
Shut up the house to-morrow; not a slave shall stir forth; 
none of my people shall honor that cursed arena! No, no!” 

“Taste the Falernian; your grief distracts you. By the 
gods it does —a piece of that cheesecake.” 

It was at this auspicious moment that Sosia was admitted to 
the presence of the disconsolate carouser. 

“Ho! what art thou?” 

“Merely a messenger to Sallust. I give him this billet from 
a young female. There is no answer that I know of. May I 
withdraw ? ” 

Thus said the discreet Sosia, keeping his face muffled in his 
cloak, and speaking with a feigned voice, so that he might not 
hereafter be recognized. 

“By the gods,a pimp! Unfeeling wretch! do you not see 
my sorrows? Go! and the curses of Pandarus with you!” 

Sosia lost not a moment in retiring. 

‘Will you read the letter, Sallust ?” said the freedman. 

“Letter! which letter?” said the epicure, reeling, for he 
began to see double. “A curse on these wenches, say 1! Am 
I a man to think of [hiccup] pleasure, when — when — my 
friend is going to be eat up?” 

“‘ Hat another tartlet.” 

“No, no! My grief chokes me!” 

“Take him to bed,” said the freedman; and, Sallust’s head 
now declining fairly on his breast, they bore him off to his 
cubiculum, still muttering lamentations for Glaucus, and im- 
precations on the unfeeling overtures of ladies of pleasure. 

Meanwhile Sosia strode indignantly homeward. “Pimp, 


154 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


indeed!” quoth he to himself. “Pimp! a scurvy-tongued fel- 
low that Sallust! Had I been called knave or thief, I could 
have forgiven it; but pimp! Faugh! there is something in 
the word which the toughest stomach in the world would rise 
against. A knave is a knave for his own pleasure, and a thief 
a thief for his own profit; and there is something honorable 
and philosophical in being a rascal for one’s own sake; that is, 
doing things upon principle, — upon a grand scale. Buta pimp 
is a thing that defiles itself for another; a pipkin that is put 
on the fire for another man’s pottage; a napkin that every 
guest wipes his hands upon, and the scullion says, ‘By your 
leave,’ too. A pimp! I would rather he had called me parri- 
cide! But the man was drunk, and did not know what he 
said; and besides, I disguised myself. Had he seen it had 
been Sosia who addressed him, it would have been ‘honest 
Sosia!’? and ‘worthy man!’ I warrant. Nevertheless, the 
trinkets have been won easily; that’s some comfort. And, 
O goddess Feronia! I shall be a freedman soon! and then I 
should lke to see who’ll call me pimp! unless, indeed, he 
pay me pretty handsomely for it!” 

While Sosia was soliloquizing in this high-minded and 
generous vein, his path lay along a narrow lane that led 
toward the amphitheatre and its adjacent palaces. Suddenly, 
as he turned a sharp corner he found himself in the midst of 
a considerable crowd. Men, women, and children, all were 
hurrying or laughing, talking, gesticulating; and ere he was 
aware of it, the worthy Sosia was borne away with the noisy 
stream. 

“What now ?” he asked of his nearest neighbor, a young 
artificer, —“ what now? Where are all these good folks 
thronging? Does any rich patron give away alms or viands 
to-night ?” 

“Not so, man; better still,” replied the artificer: “the noble 
Pansa, the people’s friend, has granted the public leave to see 
the beasts in their vivaria, By Hercules! they will not be 
seen so safely by some persons to-morrow.” 

“Tis a pretty sight,” said the slave, yielding to the throng 
that impelled him onward; “and since I may not go to the 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 155 


sports to-morrow, I may as well take a peep at the beasts 
to-night.” 

“You will do well,” returned his new acquaintance; “a lion 
and a tiger are not to be seen at Pompeii every day.” 

The crowd had now entered a broken and wide space of 
ground, on which, as it was only lighted scantily and from a 
distance, the press became dangerous to those whose limbs 
and shoulders were not fitted for a mob. Nevertheless, the 
women especially — many of them with children in their arms, 
or even at the breast — were the most resolute in forcing their 
way; and their shrill exclamations of complaint or objurgation 
were heard loud above the more jovial and masculine voices. 
Yet amidst them was a young and girlish voice, that appeared 
to come from one too happy in her excitement to be alive to 
the inconvenience of the crowd. 

“ Aha!” cried the young woman to some of her companions, 
“T always told you so; I always said we should have a man 
for the lion; and now we have one for the tiger too! I wish 
to-morrow were come ! 


‘Ho! ho! for the merry, merry show, 
With a forest of faces in every row! 
Lo, the swordsmen, bold as the son of Alemena, 
Sweep, side by side, o’er the hush’d arena; 
Talk while you may —you will hold your breath 
When they meet in the grasp of the glowing death. 
Tramp, tramp, how gayly they go! 
Ho! ho! for the merry, merry show!’” 


« A jolly girl!” said Sosia. | 

“Ves,” replied the young artificer, a curly-headed, handsome 
youth. “Yes,” replied he, enviously; “the women love a 
gladiator. If I had been a slave, I would have soon found my 
schoolmaster in the lanista!” 

“Would you indeed?” said Sosia, with a sneer. “ People’s 
notions differ.” } 

The crowd had now arrived at the place of destination; but 
as the cell in which the wild beasts were confined was ex- 
tremely small and narrow, tenfold more vehement than it 
hitherto had been, was the rush of the aspirants to obtain 


156 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


admittance. Two of the officers of the amphitheatre, placed 
at the entrance, very wisely mitigated the evil by dispensing 
to the foremost only a limited number of tickets at a time, and 
admitting no new visitors till their predecessors had sated their 
curiosity. Sosia, who was a tolerably stout fellow, and not 
troubled with any remarkable scruples of diffidence or good- 
breeding, contrived to be among the first of the initiated. 

Separated from his companion the artificer, Sosia found him- 
self in a narrow cell of oppressive heat and atmosphere, and 
lighted by several rank and flaring torches. 

The animals, usually kept in different vzvaria, or dens, were 
now, for the greater entertainment of the visitors, placed in 
one, but equally indeed divided from each other by strong 
cages protected by iron bars. 

There they were, the fell and grim wanderers of the desert, 
who have now become almost the principal agents of this 
story. The lion, who, as being the more gentle by nature than 
his fellow-beast, had been more incited to ferocity by hunger, 
stalked restlessly and fiercely to and fro his narrow confines ; 
his eyes were lurid with rage and famine; and as, every now 
and then, he paused and glared around, the spectators fearfully 
pressed backward, and drew their breath more quickly. But 
the tiger lay quiet and extended at full length in his cage, and 
only by an occasional play of his tail, or a long impatient 
yawn, testified any emotion at his confinement, or at the crowd 
which honored him with their presence. 

“T have seen no fiercer beast than yon lion even in the 
amphitheatre of Rome,” said a gigantic and sinewy fellow 
who stood at the right hand of Sosia. 

“YT feel humbled when I look at his limbs,” replied, at the 
left of Sosia, a slighter and younger figure, with his arms 
folded on his breast. 

The slave looked first at one, and then at the other. “ Vir- 
tus in medio / [ Virtue is ever in the middle !] ” muttered he to 
himself; “a goodly neighborhood for thee, Sosia, —a gladia- 
tor on each side!” 

“That is well said, Lydon,” returned the huger gladiator ; 
“T feel the same.” 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 157 


“ And to think,” observed Lydon, in a tone of deep feeling, 
“to think that the noble Greek, he whom we saw but a day or 
two since before us, so full of youth and health and joyous- 
ness, is to feast yon monster!” | 

“Why not?” growled Niger, savagely ; “many an honest 
gladiator has been compelled to a like combat by the emperor: 
why not a wealthy murderer by the law ?” 

Lydon sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and remained silent. 
Meanwhile the common gazers listened with staring eyes and 
lips apart: the gladiators were objects of interest as well 
as the beasts; they were animals of the same species; so 
the crowd glanced from one to the other, —the men and the 
brutes, — whispering their comments and anticipating the 
morrow. 

“Well,” said Lydon, turning away, “I thank the gods that 
it is not the lion or the tiger Jam to contend with; even you, 
Niger, are a gentler combatant than they.” . 

“But equally dangerous,” said the gladiator, with a fierce 
laugh ; and the bystanders, admiring his vast limbs and fero- 
cious countenance, laughed too. 

“That as it may be,” answered Lydon, carelessly, as he 
pressed through the throng and quitted the den. 

“T may as well take advantage of his shoulders,” thought 
the prudent Sosia, hastening to follow him; “the crowd always 
give way to a gladiator, so I will keep close behind, and come 
in for a share of his consequence.” 

The son of Medon strode quickly through the mob, many of 
whom recognized his features and profession. 

“That is young Lydon, a brave fellow; he fights to-mor- 
row,” said one. 

“ Ah! I have a bet on him,” said another; “see how firmly 
he walks!” 

“ Good luck to thee, Lydon!” said a third. 

“Lydon, you have my wishes,” half whispered a fourth, 
smiling (a comely woman of the middle class), “and if you 
win, why, you may hear more of me.” 

“ A handsome man, by Venus!” cried a fifth, who was a girl 
scarce in her teens. 


158 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Thank you,” returned Sosia, gravely taking the compli- 
ment to himself. 

However strong the purer motives of Lydon, and certain 
though it be that he would never have entered so bloody a 
calling but from the hope of obtaining his father’s freedom, 
he was not altogether unmoved by the notice he excited. He 
forgot that the voices now raised in commendation might, on 
the morrow, shout over his death-pangs. By nature fierce and 
reckless, as well as generous and warm-hearted, he was already 
imbued with the pride of a profession that he fancied he 
disdained, and affected by the influence of a companionship 
that in reality he loathed. He saw himself now a man of 
importance; his step grew yet lighter, and his mien more 
elate. 

“Niger,” said he, turning suddenly, as he had now threaded 
the crowd, “we have often quarrelled; we are not matched 
against each other, but one of us, at least, may reasonably 
expect to fall; give us thy hand.” 

“ Most readily,” said Sosia, extending his palm. 

“Wa! what fool is this? Why, I thought Niger was at my 
heels!” 

“JT forgive the mistake,” replied Sosia, condescendingly ; 
“don’t mention it; the error was easy; I and Niger are some- 
what of the same build.” 

“Ha! ha! that is excellent! Niger would have slit thy 
throat had he heard thee!” 

“You gentlemen of the arena have a most disagreeable mode 
of talking,” said Sosia: “let us change the conversation.” 

“Vah! vah!” said Lydon, impatiently; “I am in no 
humor to converse with thee!” 

“Why, truly,” returned the slave, “you must have serious 
thoughts enough to occupy your mind: to-morrow is, I think, 
your first essay in the arena. Well, I am sure you will die 
bravely.” 

“May thy words fall on thine own head!” said Lydon, 
superstitiously, for he by no means liked the blessing of Sosia. 
“Die! No—I trust my hour is not yet come.” 

‘He who plays at dice with death must expect the dog’s 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 159 


throw,” replied Sosia, maliciously. “But you are a strong 
fellow, and I wish you all imaginable luck; and so, vale /” 

With that the slave turned on his heel, and took his way 
homeward. 

“T trust the rogue’s words are not ominous,” said Lydon, 
musingly. “In my zeal for my father’s liberty, and my con- 
fidence in my own thews and sinews, I have not contemplated 
the possibility of death. My poor father! Iam thy only son! 
if I were to fall —” 

As the thought crossed him, the gladiator strode on with a 
more rapid and restless pace, when suddenly, in an opposite 
street, he beheld the very object of his thoughts. Leaning 
on his stick, his form bent by care and age, his eyes down- 
cast and his steps trembling, the gray-haired Medon slowly 
approached towards the gladiator, Lydon paused a moment: 
he divined at once the cause that brought forth the old man 
at that late hour. : 

‘“‘ Be sure it is I whom he seeks,” thought he; “he is horror- 
struck at the condemnation of Olinthus; he more than ever 
esteems the arena criminal and hateful; he comes again to 
dissuade me from the contest. I must shun him; I cannot 
brook his prayers, his tears.” 

These thoughts, so long to recite, flashed across the young 
man like lightning. He turned abruptly and fled swiftly in an 
opposite direction. He paused not till, almost spent and 
breathless, he found himself on the summit of a small acclivity 
which overlooked the most gay and splendid part of that 
miniature city; and as he there paused, and gazed along the 
tranquil streets glittering in the rays of the moon (which had 
just arisen, and brought partially and picturesquely into light 
the crowd around the amphitheatre at a distance, murmuring, 
and swaying to and fro), the influence of the scene affected 
him, rude and unimaginative though his nature. He sat him- 
self down to rest upon the steps of a deserted portico, and 
felt the calm of the hour quiet and restore him. Opposite, 
and near at hand, the lights gleamed from a palace in which 
the master now held his revels. The doors were open for 
coolness, and the gladiator beheld the numerous and festive 


160 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPET. 


group gathered round the tables in the atrium;! while behind 
them, closing the long vista of the illumined rooms beyond, 
the spray of the distant fountain sparkled in the moonbeams. 
There, the garlands wreathed around the columns of the hall; 
there, gleamed still and frequent the marble statue; there, 
amidst peals of jocund laughter, rose the music and the lay. 


EPICUREAN SONG. 


Away with your stories of Hades, 

Which the Flamen has forged to affright us, — 
We laugh at your three Maiden Ladies, 

Your fates, and your sullen Cocytus. 


Poor Jove has a troublesome life, sir, 
Could we credit your tales of his portals: 
In shutting his ears on his wife, sir, 
And opening his eyes upon mortals. 


Oh, blest be the bright Epicurus! 

Who taught us to laugh at such fables ; 
On Hades they wanted to moor us, 

And his hand cut the terrible cables. 


If, then, there’s a Jove or a Juno, 

They vex not their heads about us, man; 
Besides, if they did, I and you know 

”T is the life of a god to live thus, man! 


What! think you the gods place their bliss, eh ? — 
In playing the spy on a sinner ? 

In counting the girls that we kiss, eh, 
Or the cups that we empty at dinner ? 


Content with the soft lips that love us, 

This music, this wine, and this mirth, boys, 
We care not for gods up above us, — 

We know there ’s no god for this earth, boys! 


While Lydon’s piety (which, accommodating as it might be, 
was in no slight degree disturbed by these verses, which em- 
bodied the fashionable philosophy of the day) slowly recov- 


1 Jn the atrium, as I have elsewhere observed, a larger party of guests 
than ordinary was frequently entertained. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 161 


ered itself from the shock it had received, a small party of 
men, in plain garments and of the middle class, passed by his 
resting-place. ‘They were in earnest conversation, and did not 
seem to notice or heed the gladiator as they moved on. 

‘Qh, horror on horrors!” said one, “ Olinthus is snatched 
from us! our right arm is lopped away! When will Christ 
descend to protect His own ?” 

“Can human atrocity go farther,” said another, “to sen- 
tence an innocent man to the same arena as a murderer! But 
let us not despair; the thunder of Sinai may yet be heard, and 
the Lord preserve His saint. ‘The fool has said in his heart, 
There is no God.’” 

At that moment out broke again, from the illumined palace, 
the burden of the revellers’ song: — 


“We care not for gods up above us, — 
We know there ’s no god for this earth, boys!” 


Ere the words died away, the Nazarenes, moved by sudden 
indignation, caught up the echo, and, in the words of one of 
their favorite hymns, shouted aloud: — 


THE WARNING HYMN OF THE NAZARENES. 


Around — about — forever near thee, 
God — our Gop — shall mark and hear thee! 
On His car of storm He sweeps! 
Bow, ye heavens, and shrink, ye deeps! 
Woe to the proud ones who defy Him! — 
Woe to the dreamers who deny Him! 
Woe to the wicked, woe! 
The proud stars shall fail — 
The sun shall grow pale — 
The heavens shrivel up like a scroll— , 
Hell’s ocean shall bare 
Its depths of despair, 
Each wave an eternal soul! 
For the only thing, then, 
That shall not live again 
Is the corpse of the giant Timez. 
Hark, the trumpet of thunder! 
Lo, earth rent asunder! 


1 See note (a) at the end. 


VOL. 11.—11 


162 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 


And, forth, on his Angel-throne, 
He comes through the gloom, 
The Judge of the Tomb, 
To summon and save His own! 
Oh, joy to Care, and woe to Crime, 
He comes to save His own! 
Woe to the proud ones who defy Him! 
Woe to the dreamers who deny Him! 
Woe to the wicked, woe! 


A sudden silence from the startled hall of revel succeeded 
these ominous words: the Christians swept on, and were 
soon hidden from the sight of the gladiator. Awed, he scarce 
knew why, by the mystic denunciations of the Christians, 
Lydon, after a short pause, now rose to pursue his way home- 
ward. 

Before him, how serenely slept the starlight on that lovely 
city! how breathlessly its pillared streets reposed in their 
security ! how softly rippled the dark-green waves beyond! 
how cloudless spread, aloft and blue, the dreaming Campanian 
skies! Yet this was the last night for the gay Pompeii, the 
colony of the hoar Chaldean, the fabled city of Hercules, the 
delight of the voluptuous Roman! Age after age had rolled, 
indestructive, unheeded, over its head, and now the last ray 
quivered on the dial-plate of its doom. The gladiator heard 
some light steps behind; a group of females were wending 
homeward from their visit to the amphitheatre. As he turned, 
his eye was arrested by a strange and sudden apparition. 
From the summit of Vesuvius, darkly visible at the distance, 
there shot a pale, meteoric, livid light; it trembled an instant 
and was gone. And at the same moment that his eye caught 
it, the voice of one of the youngest of the women broke out 
hilariously and shrill : — 


“TRAMP! TRAMP! HOW GAYLY THEY Go! 
Ho, Ho! FOR THE MORROW’S MERRY SHOW!” 


BOOK VV. 


Stat ecce ad aras hostia, expectat manum 
Cervice prona. — SENEC. 


Before the altars, lo, the victim stands, 
And waits with bended neck the fatal blow. 


Mutatus ordo est — sede nil propria jacet, 
Sed acta retro cuncta. — Jbid. 


The appointed order changes! nought remains 
In the allotted ranks, but backward rolls 
The tide of acted things. 


Tempore quanquam illo tellus quoque, et sequora ponte 
Signa dabant.— VireiL: Georgie. lib. i. 


In the same time, the earth and surging seas 
Gave signal ! 


CHAPTER I. 


THE DREAM OF ARBACES.—A VISITOR AND A WARNING TO 
THE EGYPTIAN. 


Tue awful night preceding the fierce joy of the amphi- 
theatre rolled drearily away, and grayly broke forth the dawn 
of THE LAST DAY OF Pomprir! The air was uncommonly 
calm and sultry, a thin and dull mist gathered over the valleys 
and hollows of the broad Campanian fields. But yet it was 
remarked in surprise by the early fishermen, that, despite the 
exceeding stillness of the atmosphere, the waves of the sea 
were agitated, and seemed, as it were, to run disturbedly back 
from the shore; while along the blue and stately Sarnus, 
whose ancient breadth of channel the traveller now vainly 
seeks to discover, there crept a hoarse and sullen murmur, as 
it glided by the laughing plains and the gaudy villas of the 


164 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI, 


wealthy citizens. Clear above the low mist rose the time- 
worn towers of the immemorial town, the red-tiled roofs of 
the bright streets, the solemn columns of many temples, and 
the statue-crowned portals of the Forum and the Arch of 
Triumph. Far in the distance the outline of the circling 
hills soared above the vapors and mingled with the changeful 
hues of the morning sky. The cloud that had so long rested 
over the crest of Vesuvius had suddenly vanished, and its 
rugged and haughty brow looked without a frown over the 
beautiful scenes below. 

Despite the earliness of the hour, the gates of the city were 
already opened. Horsemen upon horsemen, vehicle after vehi- 
cle, poured rapidly in; and the voices of numerous pedes- 
trian groups, clad in holiday attire, rose high in joyous and 
excited merriment; the streets were crowded with citizens 
and strangers from the populous neighborhood of Pompeii; 
and noisily, fast, confusedly swept the many streams of life 
towards the fatal show. 

Despite the vast size of the amphitheatre, seemingly so dis- 
proportioned to the extent of the city, and formed to include 
nearly the whole population of Pompeii itself, so great, on 
extraordinary occasions, was the concourse of strangers from 
all parts of Campania, that the space before it was usually 
crowded for several hours previous to the commencement of 
the sports, by such persons as were not entitled by their rank 
to appointed and special seats. And the intense curiosity 
which the trial and sentence of two criminals so remarkable 
had occasioned, increased the crowd on this day to an extent 
wholly unprecedented. 

While the common people, with the lively vehemence of 
their Campanian blood, were thus pushing, scrambling, hurry- 
ing on, yet, amidst all their eagerness, preserving, as is now 
the wont with Italians in such meetings, a wonderful order 
and unquarrelsome good-humor, a strange visitor to Arbaces 
was threading her way to his sequestered mansion. At the 
sight of her quaint and primeval garb, of her wild gait and 
gestures, the passengers she encountered touched each other 
and smiled; but as they caught a glimpse of her countenance, 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 165 


the mirth was hushed at once, for the face was as the face of 
the dead; and, what with the ghastly features and obsolete 
robes of the stranger, it seemed as if one long entombed had 
risen once more amongst the living. In silence and awe each 
group gave way as she passed along, and she soon gained the 
_ broad porch of the Egyptian’s palace. 

The black porter, ike the rest of the world, astir at an un-— 
usual hour, started as he opened the door to her summons. 

The sleep of the Egyptian had been unusually profound 
during the night; but as the dawn approached it was dis- 
turbed by strange and unquiet dreams, which impressed him 
the more as they were colored by the peculiar philosophy he 
embraced. 

He thought that he was transported to the bowels of the 
earth, and that he stood alone in a mighty cavern, supported 
by enormous columns of rough and primeval rock, lost, as 
they ascended, in the vastness of a shadow athwart whose 
eternal darkness no beam of day had ever glanced. And in 
the space between these columns were huge wheels, that 
whirled round and round unceasingly, and with a rushing and 
roaring noise. Only to the right and left extremities of the 
cavern, the space between the pillars was left bare, and the 
apertures stretched away into galleries, not wholly dark, but 
dimly lighted by wandering and erratic fires, that, meteor- 
like, now crept (as the snake creeps) along the rugged and 
dank soil, and now leaped fiercely to and fro, darting across 
the vast gloom in wild gambols, suddenly disappearing, and 
as suddenly bursting into tenfold brilliancy and power. And 
while he gazed wonderingly upon the gallery to the left, thin, 
mist-like, aerial shapes passed slowly up; and when they had 
gained the hall they seemed to rise aloft, and to vanish, as 
the smoke vanishes, in the measureless ascent. 

He turned in fear towards the opposite extremity, and 
behold! there came swiftly from the gloom above, similar 
shadows, which swept hurriedly along the gallery to the right, 
as if borne involuntarily adown the tides of some invisible 
stream; and the faces of these spectres were more distinct 
than those that emerged from the opposite passage; and on. 


166 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


some was joy, and on others sorrow; some were vivid with 
expectation and hope, some unutterably dejected by awe and 
horror. And so they passed, swift and constantly on, till the 
eyes of the gazer grew dizzy and blinded with the whirl of an 
ever-varying succession of things impelled by a power appar- 
ently not their own. 

Arbaces turned away, and in the recess of the hall he saw 
the mighty form of a giantess seated upon a pile of skulls, and 
her hands were busy upon a pale and shadowy woof; and he 
saw that the woof communicated with the numberless wheels, 
as if it guided the machinery of their movements. He thought 
his feet, by some secret agency, were impelled towards the 
female, and that he was borne onwards till he stood before her, 
face to face. The countenance of the giantess was solemn and 
hushed, and beautifully serene. It was as the face of some 
colossal sculpture of his own ancestral sphinx. No passion, 
no human emotion, disturbed its brooding and unwrinkled 
brow: there was neither sadness, nor joy, nor memory, nor 
hope; it was free from all with which the wild human heart 
can sympathize. The mystery of mysteries rested on its 
beauty; it awed, but terrified not: it was the Incarnation of 
the Sublime. And Arbaces felt the voice leave his ips, with- 
out an impulse of his own; and the voice asked, — 

“Who art thou, and what is thy task ?” 

“Tam That which thou hast acknowledged,” answered, with- 
out desisting from its work, the mighty phantom. “My name 
is Nature! These are the wheels of the world, and my hand 
guides them for the life of all things.” 

“ And what,” said the voice of Arbaces, “are these galleries, 
that, strangely and fitly illumined, stretch on either hand into 
the abyss of gloom ?” 

“That,” answered the giant mother, “ which thou beholdest 
to the left, is the gallery of the Unborn. The shadows that 
flit onward and upward into the world are the souls that pass 
from the long eternity of being to their destined pilgrimage on 
earth. That which thou beholdest to thy right, wherein the 
shadows descending from above sweep on, cay unknown 
and dim, is the gallery of the dead!” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 167 


“ And wherefore,” said the voice of Arbaces, “yon wander- 
ing lights, that so wildly break the darkness; but only break, 
not reveal?” 

“Dark fool of the human sciences, dreamer of the stars, and 
would-be decipherer of the heart and origin of things! those 
lights are but the glimmerings of such knowledge as is vouch- 
safed to Nature to work her way, to trace enough of the past 
and future to give providence to her designs. Judge, then, 
puppet as thou art, what lights are reserved for thee!” 

Arbaces felt himself tremble as he asked again, “ Wherefore 
am I here?” 

“Tt is the forecast of thy soul; the prescience of thy rushing 
doom; the shadow of thy fate lengthening into eternity as it 
declines from earth.” 

Ere he could answer, Arbaces felt a rushing Winp sweep 
down the cavern, as the winds of a giant god. Borne aloft 
from the ground, and whirled on high as a leaf in the storms 
of autumn, he beheld himself in the midst of the Spectres of 
the Dead, and hurrying with them along the length of gloom. 
As in vain and impotent despair he struggled against the im- 
pelling power, he thought the Winp grew into something lke 
a shape,—a spectral outline of the wings and talons of an 
eagle, with limbs floating far and indistinctly along the air, 
and eyes that, alone clearly and vividly seen, glared stonily 
and remorselessly on his own. 

“What art thou?” again said the voice of the Egyptian. 

“T am That which thou hast acknowledged,” —and the 
spectre laughed aloud, — “and my name is Nrcrssity.” 

“To what dost thou bear me?” 

“To the Unknown.” 

“To happiness, or to woe?” 

“ As thou hast sown, so shalt thou reap.” 

“Dread thing, not so! If thou art the Ruler of Life, thine 
are my misdeeds, not mine.” 

“Tam but the breath of God!” answered the mighty 
WIND. 

“Then is my wisdom vain!” groaned the dreamer. 

“The husbandman accuses not fate, when, having sown 


168 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


thistles, he reaps not corn. Thou hast sown crime, accuse not 
fate if thou reapest not the harvest of virtue.” 

The scene suddenly changed. Arbaces was in a place of 
human bones; and lo! in the midst of them was a skull, and 
the skull, still retaining its fleshless hollows, assumed slowly, 
and in the mysterious confusion of a dream, the face of 
Apecides; and forth from the grinning jaws there crept a 
small worm, and it crawled to the feet of Arbaces. He at-— 
tempted to stamp on it and crush it; but it became longer and 
larger with that attempt. It swelled and bloated till it grew 
into a vast serpent: it coiled itself round the limbs of Arbaces ; 
it crunched his bones; it raised its glaring eyes and poisonous 
jaws to his face. He writhed in vain; he withered, he gasped, 
beneath the influence of the blighting breath; he felt himself 
blasted into death. And then a voice came from the reptile, 
which still bore the face of Apecides, and rang in his reeling 
ear, — | 

“THY VICTIM IS THY JUDGE! THE WORM THOU WOULDST 
CRUSH BECOMES THE SERPENT THAT DEVOURS THEE!” 

With a shriek of wrath and woe and despairing resistance, 
Arbaces awoke, his hair on end, his brow bathed in dew, his 
eyes glazed and staring, his mighty frame quivering as an 
infant’s, beneath the agony of that dream. He awoke; he 
collected himself; he blessed the gods whom he disbelieved, 
that he was in a dream; he turned his eyes from side to side ; 
he saw the dawning light break through his small but lofty win- 
dow; he was in the Precincts of Day; he rejoiced ; he smiled ; 
his eyes fell, and opposite to him he beheld the ghastly fea- 
tures, the. lifeless eye, the livid lip, of the hag of Vesuvius! 

“Ha!” he cried, placing his hands before his eyes, as to 
shut out the grisly vision, “do I dream still? Am I with the 
dead ? ” 

“Mighty Hermes, no! Thou art with one death-like, but 
not dead. Recognize thy friend and slave.” 

There was a long silence. Slowly the shudders that passed 
over the limbs of the Egyptian chased each other away, faint. 
lier and faintlher dying till he was himself again. 

“Tt was a dream, then,” said he. “ Well, let me dream no 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 169 


more, or the day cannot compensate for the pangs of night. 
Woman, how camest thou here, and wherefore ?” 

“T came to warn thee,” answered the sepulchral voice of the 
Saga. 

“Warn me! The dream lied not, then? Of what peril?” 

“Listen tome. Some evil hangs over this fated city. Fly 
while it be time. Thou knowest that I hold my home on that 
mountain beneath which old tradition saith there yet burn the 
fires of the river of Phlegethon; and in my cavern is a vast 
abyss, and in that abyss I have of late marked a red and dull > 
stream creep slowly, slowly on; and heard many and mighty 
sounds hissing and roaring through the gloom. But last night, 
as I looked thereon, behold the stream was no longer dull, but 
intensely and fiercely luminous; and while I gazed, the beast 
that liveth with me, and was cowering by my side, uttered a 
shrill howl, and fell down and died,! and the slaver and froth 
were round his lips. I crept back to my lair; but I distinctly 
heard, all the night, the rock shake and tremble, and though 
the air was heavy and still, there were the hissing of pent 
winds, and the grinding as of wheels beneath the ground. So, 
when I rose this morning at the very birth of dawn, I looked 
again down the abyss, and I saw vast fragments of stone borne 
black and floatingly over the lurid stream; and the stream 
itself was broader, fiercer, redder than the night before. Then 
I went forth, and ascended to the summit of the rock: and in 
that summit there appeared a sudden and vast hollow, which 
I had never perceived before, from which curled a dim, faint 
smoke; and the vapor was deathly, and I gasped, and sickened, 
and nearly died. I returned home. I took my gold and my 
drugs, and left the habitation of many years; for I remembered 
the dark Etruscan prophecy which saith, ‘When the mountain 
opens the city shall fall; when the smoke crowns the Hill of 
the Parched Fields, there shall be woe and weeping in the 
hearths of the Children of the Sea.’ Dread master, ere I leave 
these walls for some more distant dwelling, I come to thee. 
As thou livest, know I in my heart that the earthquake that 


1 We may suppose that the exhalations were similar in effect to those of 
the Grotia del Cane. 


170 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


sixteen years ago shook this city to its solid base, was but the 
forerunner of more deadly doom. The walls of Pompeii are 
built above the fields of the Dead, and the rivers of the sleep. 
less Hell. Be warned and fly!” 

“Witch, I thank thee for thy care of one not ungrateful. 
On yon table stands a cup of gold; take it, itisthine. Idreamt 
not that there lived one, out of the priesthood of Isis, who 
would have saved Arbaces from destruction. The signs thou 
hast seen in the bed of the extinct volcano,” continued the 
Egyptian, musingly, “surely tell of some coming danger to the 
city; perhaps another earthquake fiercer than the last. Be 
that as it may, there is a new reason for my hastening from 
these walls. After this day I will prepare my departure. 
Daughter of Etruria, whither wendest thou ? ” 

“JT shall cross over to Herculaneum this day, and, wander- 
ing thence along the coast, shall seek out anew home. I am 
friendless; my two companions, the fox and the snake, are 
dead. Great Hermes, thou hast promised me twenty addi- 
tional years of life!” 

“Ay,” said the Egyptian, “I have promised thee. But 
woman,” he added, lifting himself upon his arm, and gaz- 
ing curiously on her face, “tell me, I pray thee, wherefore 
thou wishest to live? What sweets dost thou discover in 
existence ? ” 

“Tt is not life that is sweet, but death that is awful,” replied 
the hag, in a sharp, impressive tone, that struck forcibly upon 
the heart of the vain star-seer. He winced at the truth of the 
reply; and, no longer anxious to retain so uninviting a com- 
panion, he said: “Time wanes; I must prepare for the solemn 
spectacle of this day. Sister, farewell! enjoy thyself as thou 
canst over the ashes of life.” 

The hag, who had placed the costly gift of Arbaces in the 
loose folds of her vest, now rose to depart. When she had 
gained the door she paused, turned back, and said, “This may 
be the last time we meet on earth; but whither flieth the 
flame when it leaves the ashes ? Wandering to and fro, up and 
down, as an exhalation on the morass, the flame may be seen in 
the marshes of the !ake below; and the witch and the Magian, 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 171 


the pupil and the master, the great one and the accursed one, 
may meet again. Farewell!” 

“Out, croaker!” muttered Arbaces, as the door closed on 
the hag’s tattered robes; and, impatient of his own thoughts, 
not yet recovered from the past dream, he hastily summoned 
his slaves. 

It was the custom to attend the ceremonials of the amphi- 
theatre in festive robes, and Arbaces arrayed himself that day 
with more than usual care. His tunic was of the most daz- 
zling white; his many fibula were formed from the most: 
precious stones; over his tunic flowed a loose Eastern robe, 
half-gown, half-mantle, glowing in the richest hues of the 
Tyrian dye; and the sandals, that reached half-way up the 
knee, were studded with gems and inlaid with gold. In the 
quackeries that belonged to his priestly genius, Arbaces never 
neglected, on great occasions, the arts which dazzle and impose 
upon the vulgar; and on this day, that was forever to release 
him, by the sacrifice of Glaucus, from the fear of a rival and 
the chance of detection, he felt that he was arraying himself 
as for a triumph or a nuptial feast. 

It was customary for men of rank to be accompanied to the 
shows of the amphitheatre by a procession of their slaves and 
freedmen; and the long “family” of Arbaces were already 
arranged in order, to attend the litter of their lord. . 

Only, to their great chagrin, the slaves in attendance on 
Tone, and the worthy Sosia, as jailer to Nydia, were con- 
demned to remain at home. 

‘“Oallias,” said Arbaces, apart to his freedman, who was 
buckling on his girdle, “I am weary of Pompeii; I propose 
to quit it in three days, should the wind favor. Thou knowest 
the vessel that lies in the harbor, which belonged to Narses 
of Alexandria; I have purchased it of him. The day after 
to-morrow we shall begin to remove my stores.” 

“So soon! ’Tis well. Arbaces shall be obeyed; and his 
ward, Jone?” 

«“ Accompanies me. Enough! Is the morning fair?” 

“Dim and oppressive ; it will probably be intensely hot in 
the forenoon.” 


172 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


“The poor gladiators, and more wretched criminals! De- 
scend, and see that the slaves are marshalled.” 

Left alone, Arbaces stepped into his chamber of study, and 
thence upon the portico without. He saw the dense masses 
of men pouring fast into the amphitheatre, and heard the ery 
of the assistants and the cracking of the cordage, as they were 
straining aloft the huge awning under which the citizens, 
molested by no discomforting ray, were to behold, at luxurious 
ease, the agonies of their fellow-creatures. Suddenly a wild, 
strange sound went forth, and as suddenly died away: it was 
the roar of the lion. There was a silence in the distant crowd; 
but the silence was followed by joyous laughter: they were 
making merry at the hungry impatience of the royal beast. 

“ Brutes!”? muttered the disdainful Arbaces, “are ye less 
homicides thanIam? J slay but in self-defence; ye make 
murder pastime.” . 

He turned with a restless and curious eye towards Vesuvius. 
Beautifully glowed the green vineyards round its breast, and 
tranquil as eternity lay in the breathless skies the form of the 
mighty hill. 

“We have time yet, if the earthquake be nursing,” thought 
Arbaces; and he turned from the spot. He passed by the 
table which bore his mystic scrolls and Chaldean calculations. 

“ August art,” he thought, “I have not consulted thy decrees 
since I passed the danger and the crisis they foretold. What 
matter? I know that henceforth all in my path is bright and 
smooth. Have not events already proved it? Away, doubt; 
away, pity! Reflect, O my heart, reflect, for the future, but 
two images !— Empire and lone! ” 


On Ory, 
Me OL Pare 
ie 


j 
fe, 
Wg 


ey) 
iG) 


‘THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 173 


CHAPTER II. 
THE AMPHITHEATRE. 


NyprA, assured by the account of Sosia, on his return home, 
and satisfied that her letter was in the hands of Sallust, gave 
herself up once more to hope. Sallust would surely lose no 
time in seeking the pretor, in coming to the house of the 
Egyptian, in releasing her, in breaking the prison of Calenus. 
That very night Glaucus would be free. Alas! the night 
passed; the dawn broke; she heard nothing but the hurried 
footsteps of the slaves along the hall and peristyle, and their 
voices in preparation for the show. By and by the commanding 
voice of Arbaces broke on her ear; a flourish ‘of music rang out 
cheerily; the long procession were sweeping to the amphithe- 
atre to glut their eyes on the death-pangs of the Athenian ! 

The procession of Arbaces moved along slowly, and with 
much solemnity, till now, arriving at the place where it was 
necessary for such as came in litters or chariots to alight, 
Arbaces descended from his vehicle, and proceeded to the 
entrance by which the more distinguished spectators were 
admitted. His slaves, mingling with the humbler crowd, were 
stationed by officers who received their tickets (not much un- 
like our modern opera ones), in places in the popularia (the 
seats apportioned to the vulgar). And now, from the spot 
where Arbaces sat, his eyes scanned the mighty and impatient 
crowd that filled the stupendous theatre. 

On the upper tier (but apart from the male spectators) sat 
the women, their gay dresses resembling some gaudy flower- 
bed; it is needless to add that they were the most talkative 
part of the assembly ; and many were the looks directed up to 
them, especially from the benches appropriated to the young 
and the unmarried men. On the lower seats round the arena 
sat the more high-born and wealthy visitors, the magistrates, 
and those of senatorial or equestrian! dignity: the passages 


1 The equites sat immediately behind the senators. 


174 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


which, by corridors at the right and left, gave access to these 
seats, at either end of the oval arena, were also the entrances 
for the combatants. Strong palings at these passages pre- 
vented any unwelcome eccentricity in the movements of the 
beasts, and confined them to their appointed prey. Around 
the parapet which was raised above the arena, and from which 
the seats gradually rose, were gladiatorial inscriptions, and 
paintings wrought in fresco, typical of the entertainments for 
which the place was designed. Throughout the whole building 
wound invisible pipes, from which, as the day advanced, cool- 
ing and fragrant showers were to be sprinkled over the spec- 
tators. The officers of the amphitheatre were still employed 
in the task of fixing the vast awning (or velaria) which covered 
the whole, and which luxurious invention the Campanians 
arrogated to themselves: it was woven of the whitest Apulian 
wool, and variegated with broad stripes of crimson. Owing 
either to some inexperience on the part of the workmen, or to 
some defect in the machinery, the awning, however, was not 
arranged that day so happily as usual: indeed, from the im- 
mense space of the circumference, the task was always one of 
great difficulty and art; so much so, that it could seldom be 
adventured in rough or windy weather But the present day 
was so remarkably still that there seemed to the spectators no 
excuse for the awkwardness of the artificers; and when a 
large gap in the back of the awning was still visible, from the 
obstinate refusal of one part of the velaria to ally itself with 
the rest, the murmurs of discontent were loud and general. 

The zedile Pansa, at whose expense the exhibition was given, 
looked particularly annoyed at the defect, and vowed bitter 
vengeance on the head of the chief officer of the show, who, 
fretting, puffing, perspiring, busied himself in idle orders and 
unavailing threats. 

The hubbub ceased suddenly, the operators desisted, the 
crowd were stilled, the gap was forgotten; for now, with 
a loud and warlike flourish of trumpets, the gladiators, mar- 
shalled in ceremonious procession, entered the arena. They 
swept round the oval space very slowly and deliberately, in 
order to give the spectators full leisure to admire their stern 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL. 175 


serenity of feature, their brawny limbs and various arms, as 
well as to form such wagers as the excitement of the moment 
might suggest. 

“Oh,” cried the widow Fulvia to the wife of Pansa, as they 
leaned down from their lofty bench, “do you see that gigantic 
gladiator ? How drolly he is dressed!” 

“Yes,” said the edile’s wife with complacent importance, 
for she knew all the names and qualities of each combatant, 
“he is a retiarius, or netter; he is armed only, you see, with 
a three-pronged spear like a trident, and a net; he wears no 
armor, only the fillet and the tunic. He is a mighty man, and 
is to fight with Sporus, yon thick-set gladiator with the round 
shield and drawn sword, but without body armor; he has not 
his helmet on now, in order that you may see his face, — 
how fearless it is! By and by he will fight with his visor 
down.” 

“ But surely a net and a spear are poor arms against a shield 
and sword ?” 

“That shows how innocent you are, my dear Fulvia; the 
retiarius has generally the best of it.” 

‘But who is yon handsome gladiator, nearly naked, — is it 
not quite improper ? By Venus! but his hmbs are beautifully 
shaped!” 

“Tt is Lydon, a young untried man! He has the rashness to 
fight yon other gladiator similarly dressed, or rather undressed, 
— Tetraides. They fight first in the Greek fashion, with the 
cestus; afterwards they put on armor, and try sword and 
shield.” 

“He is a proper man, this Lydon; and the women, I am 
sure, are on his side.” | 

“So are not the experienced betters; Clodius offers three to 
one against him.” 

“Oh, Jove, how beautiful!” exclaimed the widow, as two 
gladiators, armed cap-a-pie, rode round the arena on light and 
prancing steeds. Resembling much the combatants in the 
tilts of the Middle Ages, they bore lances and round. shields 
beautifully inlaid: their armor was woven intricately with 
bands of iron, but it covered only the thighs and the right 


176 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


arms; short cloaks, extending to the seat, gave a picturesque 
and graceful air to their costume; their legs were naked, with 
the exception of sandals, which were fastened a little above 
the ankle. “Oh, beautiful! Who are these?” asked the 
widow. 

“The one is named Berbix,—he has conquered twelve 
times; the other assumes the arrogant name of Nobilor. 
They are both Gauls.” 

While thus conversing, the first formalities of the show 
were over. To these succeeded a feigned combat with wooden 
swords between the various gladiators matched against each 
other. Amongst these the skill of two Roman gladiators, 
hired for the occasion, was the most admired; and next to 
them the most graceful combatant was Lydon. This sham 
contest did not last above an hour, nor did it attract any very 
lively interest except among those connoisseurs of the arena to 
whom art was preferable to more coarse excitement; the body 
of the spectators were rejoiced when it was over, and when the 
sympathy rose to terror. The combatants were now arranged 
in pairs, as agreed beforehand, their weapons examined; and 
the grave sports of the day commenced amidst the deepest 
silence, broken only by an exciting and preliminary blast of 
warlike music. 

It was often customary to begin the sports by the most eruel 
of all, and some lestiarius, or gladiator appointed to the beasts, 
was slain first, as an initiatory sacrifice. But in the present 
instance the experienced Pansa thought it better that the 
sanguinary drama should advance, not decrease, in interest; 
and accordingly the execution of Olinthus and Glaucus was 
reserved for the last. It was arranged that the two horsemen 
should first occupy the arena; that the foot gladiators, paired 
off, should then be loosed indiscriminately on the stage; that 
Glaucus and the lion should next perform their part in the 
bloody spectacle, and the tiger and the Nazarene be the grand 
finale. And in the spectacles of Pompeii the reader of 
Roman history must limit his imagination, nor expect to find 
those vast and wholesale exhibitions of magnificent slaughter 
with which a Nero or a Caligula regaled the inhabitants of the 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. LG 


Imperial City. The Roman shows, which absorbed the more 
celebrated gladiators and the chief proportion of foreign 
beasts, were indeed the very reason why, in the lesser towns 
of the empire, the sports of the amphitheatre were compara- 
tively humane and rare; and in this, as in other respects, 
Pompeii was but the miniature, the microcosm of Rome. Still, 
it was an awful and imposing spectacle, with which modern 
times have, happily, nothing to compare: a vast theatre, 
rising row upon row, and swarming with human beings, from 
fifteen to eighteen thousand in number, intent upon no ficti- 
tious representation, no tragedy of the stage, but the actual 
victory or defeat, the exultant life or the bloody death, of each 
and all who entered the arena! 

The two horsemen were now at either extremity of the lists 
Gf so they might be called), and at a given signal from 
Pansa the combatants started simultaneously as in full col- 
lision, each advancing his round buckler, each poising on high 
his light yet sturdy javelin; but just when within three paces 
of his opponent, the steed of Berbix suddenly halted, wheeled 
round, and, as Nobilior was borne rapidly by, his antagonist 
spurred upon him. The buckler of Nobilior, quickly and skil- 
fully extended, received a blow which otherwise would have 
been fatal. 

‘Well done, Nobilior!” cried the pretor, giving the first 
vent to the popular excitement. 

“ Bravely struck, my Berbix!” answered Clodius from his 
seat. 

And the wild murmur, swelled by many a shout, echoed 
from side to side. 

The visors of both the horsemen were completely closed 
(like those of the knights in after times), but the head was, 
nevertheless, the great point of assault; and Nobilior, now 
wheeling his charger with no less adroitness than his opponent, 
directed his spear full on the helmet of his foe. Berbix raised 
his buckler to shield himself, and his quick-eyed antagonist, 
suddenly lowering his weapon, pierced him through the breast. 
Berbix reeled and fell. 

“ Nobilior! Nobilior!” shouted the populace. 


VOL. 11. — 12 


178 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“T fave lost ten sestertia,’”’! said Clodius, between his teeth. 

“ Habet / [he has it!]” said Pansa, deliberately. 

The populace, not yet hardened into cruelty, made the 
signal of mercy; but as the attendants of the arena ap- 
proached, they found the kindness came too late; the heart 
of the Gaul had been pierced, and his eyes were set in death. 
It was his life’s blood that flowed so darkly over the sand and 
sawdust of the arena. 

“Tt is a pity it was so soon over; there was little enough 
for one’s trouble,” said the widow Fulvia. 

“Yes; I have no compassion for Berbix. Any one might 
have seen that Nobilior did but feint. Mark, they fix the fatal 
hook to the body; they drag him away to the spoliarium; 
they scatter new sand over the stage! Pansa regrets nothing 
more than that he is not rich enough to strew the arena with 
borax and cinnabar, as Nero used to do!” 

“Well, if it has been a brief battle, it is quickly succeeded. 
See my handsome Lydon on the arena; ay, and the net-bearer 
too, and the swordsmen! Oh, charming!” 

There were now on the arena six combatants: Niger and 
his net, matched against Sporus with his shield and his short 
broadsword ; Lydon and Tetraides, naked save by a cincture 
round the waist, each armed only with a heavy Greek cestus ; 
and two gladiators from Rome clad in complete steel, and 
evenly matched with immense bucklers and pointed swords. 

The initiatory contest between Lydon and Tetraides being 
less deadly than that between the other combatants, no sooner 
had they advanced to the middle of the arena than, as by 
common consent, the rest held back, to see how that contest 
should be decided, and wait till fiercer weapons might replace 
the cestus, ere they themselves commenced hostilities. They 
stood leaning on their arms and apart from each other, gazing 
on the show, which, if not bloody enough thoroughly to please 
the populace, they were still inclined to admire, because its 
origin was of their ancestral Greece. 

No person could, at first glance, have seemed less evenly 
matched than the two antagonists. Tetraides, though not 

1 A little more than £80. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 179 


taller than Lydon, weighed considerably more; the natural 
size of his muscles was increased, to the eyes of the vulgar, 
by masses of solid flesh; for, as it was a notion that the con- 
test of the cestus fared easiest with him who was plumpest, 
Tetraides had encouraged to the utmost his hereditary pre- 
disposition to the portly. His shoulders were vast, and his 
lower limbs thick-set, double-jointed, and slightly curved out- 
ward in that formation which takes so much from beauty 
to give so largely to strength. But Lydon, except that he 
was slender even almost to meagreness, was beautifully and 
delicately proportioned ; and the skilful might have perceived 
that, with much less compass of muscle than his foe, that 
which he had was more seasoned,—iron and compact. In 
proportion, too, as he wanted flesh, he was likely to possess 
activity ; and a haughty smile on his resolute face, which 
strongly contrasted the solid heaviness of his enemy’s, gave 
assurance to those who beheld it, and united their hope to 
their pity: so that, despite the disparity of their seeming 
strength, the cry of the multitude was nearly as loud for 
Lydon as for Tetraides. 

Whoever is acquainted with the modern prize-ring — who- 
ever has witnessed the heavy and disabling strokes which the 
human fist, skilfully directed, hath the power to bestow — 
may easily understand how much that happy facility would 
be increased by a band carried by thongs of leather round the 
arm as high as the elbow, and terribly strengthened about the 
knuckles by a plate of iron, and sometimes a plummet of lead. 
Yet this, which was meant to increase, perhaps rather dimin- 
ished, the interest of the fray; for it necessarily shortened its 
duration. A very few blows, successfully and scientifically 
planted, might suffice to bring the contest to a close; and the 
battle did not, therefore, often allow full scope for the energy, 
fortitude, and dogged perseverance that we technically style 
pluck, which not unusually wins the day against superior sci- 
ence, and which heightens to so painful a delight the interest 
in the battle and the sympathy for the brave. 

“Guard thyself!” growled Tetraides, moving nearer and 
nearer to his foe, who rather shifted round him than receded. 


180 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


Lydon did not answer, save by a scornful glance of his: 
quick, vigilant eye. Tetraides struck: it was as the blow of 
a smith on a vice; Lydon sank suddenly on one knee, — the 
blow passed over his head. Notso harmless was Lydon’s re- 
taliation: he quickly sprung to his feet, and aimed his cestus 
full on the broad breast of his antagonist. Tetraides reeled; 
the populace shouted. 

“You are unlucky to-day,” said Lepidus to Clodius: “you 
have lost one bet; you will lose another.” 

“ By the gods! my bronzes go to the auctioneer if that is the 
case. I have no less thana hundred sestertia? upon Tetraides. 
Ha, ha! see how he rallies! That was a home stroke; he has 
cut open Lydon’s shoulder. A Tetraides! a Tetraides !” 

“ But Lydon is not disheartened. By Pollux! how well he 
keeps his temper! See how dexterously he avoids those 
hammer-like hands,—dodging now here, now there, — cir- 
cling round and round! Ah, poor Lydon! he has it again.” 

“Three to one still on Tetraides! What say you, Lepidus?” 

“Well, nine sestertia to three —be it so! What! again, 
Lydon? He stops—he gasps for breath. By the gods, he 
is down! No, he is again on his legs. Brave Lydon! 
Tetraides is encouraged; he laughs loud; he rushes on 
him.” 

‘Fool ! success blinds him: he should be cautious. Lydon’s 
eye is like a lynx’s!” said Clodius, between his teeth. 

“Ha, Clodius! saw you that ? Your man totters! Another 
blow; he falls — he falls!” 

‘¢ Harth revives him, then. He is once more up; but the 
blood rolls down his face.” 

“By the thunderer! Lydon wins it. See how he presses on 
him! That blow on the temple would have crushed an ox; 
it has crushed Tetraides. He falls again; he cannot move: 
habet! habet!” 

“ Habet /” repeated Pansa. “Take them out and give them 
the armor and swords.” 

“Noble editor,” said the officers, “we fear that Tetraides 
will not recover in time; howbeit, we will try.” 

1 Above £800. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 181 


“Do so.” 

In a few minutes the officers who had dragged off the 
stunned and insensible gladiator, returned with rueful counte- 
nances. They feared for his life; he was utterly incapacitated 
from re-entering the arena. 

“In that case,”’ said Pansa, “hold Lydon a subditius ; and 
the first gladiator that is vanquished, let Lydon supply his 
place with the victor.” 

The people shouted their applause at this sentence: then 
they again sunk into deep silence. The trumpet sounded 
loudly. The four combatants stood each against each in 
prepared and stern array. 

“Dost thou recognize the Romans, my Clodius? Are they 
among the celebrated, or are they merely ordinarii? ” 

“ Kumolpus is a good second-rate swordsman, my Lepidus. 
Nepimus, the lesser man, I have never seen before; but he is 
the son of one of the imperial jiscales,’ and brought up in a 
proper school; doubtless they will show sport, but I have no 
heart for the game; I cannot win back my money: I am un- 
done. Curses on that Lydon! who could have supposed he 
was so dexterous or so lucky ?” 

“Well, Clodius, shall I take compassion on you, and accept 
your own terms with these Romans ? ” 

“ An even ten sestertia on Kumolpus, then?” 

“ What! when Nepimus is untried? Nay, nay; that is too 
bad.” 

“ Well, ten to eight ?” 

“ Aoreed.” 

While the contest in the amphitheatre had thus commenced, 
there was one in the loftier benches for whom it had assumed, 
indeed, a poignant, a stifling interest. The aged father of 
Lydon, despite his Christian horror of the spectacle, in his 
agonized anxiety for his son had not been able to resist being 
the spectator of his fate. One amidst a fierce crowd of 
strangers—the lowest rabble of the populace—the old man 
saw, felt nothing, but the form, the presence of his brave son! 
_ Not a sound had escaped his lips when twice he had seen him 


1 Gladiators maintained by the emperor. 


182 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


fall to the earth; only he had turned paler, and his limbs trem- 
bled. But he had uttered one low cry when he saw him vic- 
torious, unconscious, alas! of the more fearful battle to which 
that victory was but a prelude. 

“My gallant boy!” said he, and wiped his eyes. 

“Ts he thy son?” said a brawny fellow to the right of the 
Nazarene; “he has fought well: let us see how he does by and 
by. Hark! he is to fight the first victor. Now, old boy, pray 
the gods that that victor be neither of the Romans, nor, next 
to them, the giant Niger!” 

The old man sat down again and covered his face. The 
fray for the moment was indifferent to him; Lydon was not 
one of the combatants. Yet, yet the thought flashed across 
him —the fray was indeed of deadly interest; the first who 
fell was to make way for Lydon! He started, and bent 
down, with straining eyes and clasped hands, te view the 
encounter. 

The first interest was attracted towards the combat of Niger 
with Sporus; for this species of contest, from the fatal result 
which usually attended it, and from the great science it re- 
quired in either antagonist, was always peculiarly inviting to 
the spectators. 

They stood at a considerable distance from each other. The 
singular helmet which Sporus wore (the visor of which was 
down) concealed his face; but the features of Niger attracted 
a fearful and universal interest from their compressed and 
vigilant ferocity. Thus they stood for some moments, each 
eying each, until Sporus began slowly, and with great caution, 
to advance, holding his sword pointed, like a modern fencer’s, 
at the breast of his foe. Niger retreated as his antagonist 
advanced, gathering up his net with his right hand, and never 
taking his small glittering eye from the movements of the 
swordsman. Suddenly when Sporus had approached nearly 
at arm’s length, the retiarius threw himself forward, and cast 
his net. A quick inflection of body saved the gladiator from 
the deadly snare! He uttered a sharp ery of joy and rage, and 
rushed upon Niger: but Niger had already drawn in his net, 
thrown it across his shoulders, and now fled round the lists 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 183 


with a swiftness which the secufor! in vain endeavored to 
equal. The people laughed and shouted aloud, to see the 
ineffectual efforts of the broad-shouldered gladiator to over- 
take the flying giant: when, at that moment, their attention 
was turned from these to the two Roman combatants. 

They had placed themselves at the onset face to face, at the 
distance of modern fencers from each other: but the extreme 
caution which both evinced at first had prevented any warmth 
of engagement, and allowed the spectators full leisure to 
interest themselves in the battle between Sporus and his 
foe. But the Romans were now heated into full and fierce 
encounter: they pushed, returned, advanced on, retreated from, 
each other with all that careful yet scarcely perceptible 
caution which characterizes men well experienced and equally 
matched. But at this moment Eumolpus, the elder gladiator, 
by that dexterous back-stroke which was considered in the 
arena so difficult to avoid, had wounded Nepimus in the side. 
The people shouted ; Lepidus turned pale. 

“Ho!” said Clodius, “the game is nearly over. If Eumol- 
pus fights now the quiet fight, the other will gradually bleed 
himself away.” 

“But, thank the gods! he does not fight the backward 
fight. See! he presses hard upon Nepimus. By Mars! but 
Nepimus had him there! the helmet rang again! Clodius, I 
shall win!” 

“Why do I ever bet but at the dice?” groaned Clodius to 
himself; “or why cannot one cog a gladiator ?” 

“A Sporus! a Sporus!” shouted the populace, as Niger, 
having now suddenly paused, had again cast his net, and 
again unsuccessfully. He had not retreated this time with 
sufficient agility; the sword of Sporus had inflicted a se- 
vere wound upon his right leg; and, incapacitated to fly, 
he was pressed hard by the fierce swordsman. His great 
height and length of arm still continued, however, to give 
him no despicable advantages; and steadily keeping his tri- 


1 So called, from the office of that tribe of gladiators, in following the foe 
the moment the net was cast, in order to smite him ere he could have time to 
rearrange it. 


184. THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


dent at the front of his foe, he repelled him successfully for. 
several minutes. Sporus now tried, by great rapidity of evo- 
lution, to get round his antagonist, who necessarily moved 
with pain and slowness. In so doing, he lost his caution, he 
advanced too near to the giant, raised his arm to strike, 
and received the three points of the fatal spear full in his 
breast! He sank on his knee. In a moment more the deadly 
net was cast over him, he struggled against its messes in vain; 
again — again — again he writhed mutely beneath the fresh 
strokes of the trident; his blood flowed fast through the net 
and redly over the sand. He lowered his arms in acknowl- 
edgment of defeat. 

The conquering retiarius withdrew his net, and leaning on 
his spear, looked to the audience for their judgment. Slowly, 
too, at the same moment the vanquished gladiator rolled his 
dim and despairing eyes around the theatre. From row to 
row, from bench to bench, there glared upon him but merciless 
and unpitying eyes. 

Hushed was the roar, the murmur! The silence was dread, 
for in it was no sympathy; not a hand —no, not even a 
woman’s hand — gave the signal of charity and life! Sporus 
had never been popular in the arena; and lately the interest 
of the combat had been excited on behalf of the wounded 
Niger. The people were warmed into blood: the mimic fight 
had ceased to charm; the interest had mounted up to the de- 
sire of sacrifice and the thirst of death! 

The gladiator felt that his doom was sealed: he uttered no 
prayer, no groan. The people gave the signal of death! In 
dogged but agonized submission he bent his neck to receive 
the fatal stroke. And now, as the spear of the retiarius was not 
a weapon to inflict instant and certain death, there stalked into 
the arena a grim and fatal form, brandishing a short, sharp 
sword, and with features utterly concealed beneath its visor. 
With slow and measured steps this dismal headsman ap- 
proached the gladiator, still kneeling, laid the left hand on his 
humbled crest, drew the edge of the blade across his neck, 
turned round to the assembly, lest, in the last moment, remorse 
’ should come upon them ; the dread signal continued the same: 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 185 


the blade glittered brightly in the air, fell, and the gladiator 
rolled upon the sand; his limbs quivered, were still: he was 
a corpse.? | 

His body was dragged at once from the arena through the 
gate of death, and thrown into the gloomy den termed tech- 
nically the spoliarium; and ere it had well reached that des- 
tination the strife between the remaining combatants was 
decided. The sword of Eumolpus had inflicted the death- 
wound upon the less experienced combatant. A new victim 
was added to the receptacle of the slain. 

Throughout that mighty assembly there now ran a univer- 
sal movement; the people breathed more freely, and resettled 
themselves in their seats. A grateful shower was cast over 
every row from the concealed conduits. In cool and luxurious 
pleasure they talked over the late spectacle of blood. Jumol- 
pus removed his helmet, and wiped his brows ; his close-curled 
hair and short beard, his noble Roman features and bright 
dark eye attracted the general admiration. He was fresh, 
unwounded, unfatigued. 

The editor paused, and proclaimed aloud that, as Niger’s 
wound disabled him from again entering the arena, Lydon was 
to be the successor to the slaughtered Nepimus, and the new 
combatant of Eumolpus. 

“Yet, Lydon,” added he, “if thou wouldst decline the com- 
bat with one so brave and tried, thou mayst have full liberty 
to do so. Eumolpus is not the antagonist that was originally 
decreed for thee. Thou knowest best how far thou canst cope 
with him. If thou failest, thy doom is honorable death; if 
thou conquerest, out of my own purse I will double the 
stipulated prize.” 

The people shouted applause. Lydon stood in the lists; he 
gazed around; high above he beheld the pale face, the strain- 
ing eyes, of his father. He turned away irresolute for a 
moment. No! the conquest of the cestus was not sufficient : 
he had not yet won the prize of victory; his father was still 
a slave ! 


1 See the engraving from the friezes of Pompeii, in the work on that city 
published in the “ Library of Entertaining Knowledge,” vol. ii. p. 211. 


186 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Noble sdile!” he replied, in a firm and deep tone, “I 
shrink not from this combat. For the honor of Pompeii I de- 
mand that one trained by its long-celebrated lanista shall do 
battle with this Roman.” 

The people shouted louder than before. 

“Four to one against Lydon!” said Clodius to Lepidus. 

“T would not take twenty to one! Why, Eumolpus is a 
very Achilles, and this poor fellow is but a tira /” 

Eumolpus gazed hard on the face of Lydon; he smiled: 
yet the smile was followed by a slight and scarce audible 
sigh, a touch of compassionate emotion, which custom con- 
quered the moment the heart acknowledged it. 

And now both, clad in complete armor, the sword drawn, 
the visor closed, the two last combatants of the arena (ere 
man, at least, was matched with beast) stood opposed to each 
other. 

It was just at this time that a letter was delivered to the pre- 
tor by one of the attendants of the arena: he removed the cinc- 
ture, glanced over it for a moment; his countenance betrayed 
surprise and embarrassment. He re-read the letter, and then 
muttering, “Tush, it is impossible! the man must be drunk, 
even in the morning, to dream of such follies!” threw it care- 
lessly aside, and gravely settled himself once more in the 
attitude of attention to the sports. 

The interest of the public was wound up very high. Eumol- 
pus had at first won their favor; but the gallantry of Lydon, 
and his well-timed allusion to the honor of the Pompeian 
lanista, had afterwards given the latter the preference in their 
eyes. 

“ Holla, old fellow!” said Medon’s neighbor to him, “your 
son is hardly matched ; but never fear, the editor will not per- 
mit him to be slain, —no, nor the people neither; he has be- 
haved too bravely for that. Ha! that was a home thrust! 
well averted, by Pollux! At him again, Lydon! They stop 
to breathe! What art thou muttering, old boy ?” 

“ Prayers!” answered Medon, with a more calm and hopeful 
mien than he had yet maintained. 

“Prayers! trifles! The time for gods to carry a man away 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 18T 


in a cloud is gone now! Ha! Jupiter! what a blow! Thy 
side, thy side! take care of thy side, Lydon!” 

There was a convulsive tremor throughout the assembly. 
A fierce blow from Eumolpus, full on the crest, had brought 
Lydon to his knee. 

“ Habet/ [he has it!]” cried a shrill female voice; “he 
has it!” : 

It was the voice of the girl who had so anxiously anticipated 
the sacrifice of some criminal to the beasts. 

“Be silent, child!” said the wife of Pansa, haughtily. Non 
habet/ [he is no¢ wounded! ]” 

“T wish he were, if only to spite old surly Medon,” muttered 
the girl. 

Meanwhile Lydon, who had hitherto defended himself with 
great skill and valor, began to give way before the vigorous 
assaults of the practised Roman; his arm grew tired, his eye 
dizzy, he breathed hard and painfully. The combatants paused 
again for breath. 

“Young man,” said Kumolpus, in a low voice, “desist; I 
will wound thee slightly, then lower thy arms; thou hast 
propitiated the editor and the mob; thou wilt be honorably 
saved !” 

“ And my father still enslaved!” groaned Lydon to himself. 
“No! death or his freedom!” 

At that thought, and seeing that, his strength not being 
equal to the endurance of the Roman, everything depended 
on a sudden and desperate effort, he threw himself fiercely on 
Eumolpus; the Roman warily retreated; Lydon thrust again ; 
Eumolpus drew himself aside; the sword grazed his cuirass; 
Lydon’s breast was exposed; the Roman plunged his sword 
through the joints of the armor, not meaning, however, to 
inflict a deep wound; Lydon, weak and exhausted, fell for- 
ward, fell right on the point: it passed through and through, 
even to the back. Eumolpus drew forth his blade; Lydon still 
made an effort to regain his balance; his sword left his grasp; 
he struck mechanically at the gladiator with his naked hand, 
and fell prostrate on the arena. With one accord, editor and 
assembly made the signal of mercy; the officers of the arena 


188 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


approached; they took off the helmet of the vanquished. He 
still breathed; his eyes rolled fiercely on his foe; the savage- 
ness he had acquired in his calling glared from his gaze, and 
lowered upon the brow darkened already with the shades of 
death; then, with a convulsive groan, with a half start, he 
lifted his eyes above. They rested not on the face of the 
editor nor on the pitying brows of his relenting judges. He 
saw them not; they were as if the vast space was desolate and 
bare; one pale agonizing face alone was all he recognized; 
one cry of a broken heart was all that, amidst the murmurs 
and the shouts of the populace, reached his ear. The ferocity 
vanished from his brow; a soft, a tender expression of sanc- 
tifying but despairing filial love played over his features, — 
played, waned, darkened. His face suddenly became locked 
and rigid, resuming its former fierceness. He fell upon the 
earth. 

‘Look to him,” said the edile; “he has done his duty.” 

The officers dragged him off to the spoliarium. 

“ A true type of glory and of its fate!” murmured Arbaces 
to himself; and his eye, glancing round the amphitheatre, 
betrayed so much of disdain and scorn, that whoever encoun- 
tered it felt his breath suddenly arrested, and his emotions 
frozen into one sensation of abasement and of awe. 

Again rich perfumes were wafted around the theatre; the 
attendants sprinkled fresh sand over the arena. 

“Bring forth the hon and Glaucus the Athenian,” said the 
editor. 

And a deep and breathless hush of overwrought interest, 
and intense (yet, strange to say, not unpleasing) terror lay, 
like a mighty and awful dream, over the assembly. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEI. 189 


CHAPTER III. 
SALLUST AND NYDIA’S LETTER. 


Turick had Sallust awakened from his morning sleep, and 
thrice, recollecting that his friend was that day to perish, had 
he turned himself with a deep sigh once more to court obliv- 
ion. His sole object in life was to avoid pain; and where he 
could not avoid, at least to forget it. 

At length, unable any longer to steep his conscience in 
slumber, he raised himself from his recumbent posture, and 
discovered his favorite freedman sitting by his bedside as 
usual; for Sallust, who, as I have said, had a gentlemanlike 
taste for the polite letters, was accustomed to be read to for 
an hour or so previous to his rising in the morning. 

“No books to-day! no more Tibullus! no more Pindar for 
me! Pindar! alas, alas! the very name recalls those games 
to which our arena is the savage successor. Has it begun, — 
the amphitheatre ? Are its rites commenced ?” 

“Tong since, O Sallust! Did you not hear the trumpets and 
the trampling feet ? ” 

“ Ay, ay; but the gods be thanked, I was drowsy, and had 
only to turn round to fall asleep again.” 

“The gladiators must have been long in the ring.” 

“The wretches! None of my people have gone to the 
spectacle ?” 

“ Assuredly not; your orders were too strict.” 

“That is well; would the day were over! What is that 
letter yonder on the table ?” 

“That! Oh, the letter brought to you last night, when you 
were too — too —” 

“ Drunk to read it, I suppose. No matter, it cannot be of 
much importance.” 

“ Shall I open it for you, Sallust ? ” 

“Do: anything to divert my thoughts. Poor Glaucus!” 


190 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


The freedman opened the letter. “What! Greek?” said 
he: “Some learned lady, I suppose.” He glanced over the 
letter, and for some moments the irregular lines traced by the 
blind girl’s hand puzzled him. Suddenly, however, his coun- 
tenance exhibited emotion and surprise. ‘Good gods! noble 
Sallust! what have we done not to attend to this before? 
Hear me read! 


‘“¢ Nydia, the slave, to Sallust, the friend of Glaucus. I am a pris- 
oner in the house of Arbaces. Hasten to the pretor! procure my re- 
lease, and we shall yet save Glaucus from the lion. There is another 
prisoner within these walls, whose witness can exonerate the Athenian 
from the charge against him; one who saw the crime, who ean prove 
the criminal in a villain hitherto unsuspected. Fly! hasten! quick! 
quick! Bring with you armed men, lest resistance be made, and a 
cunning and dexterous smith; for the dungeon of my fellow-prisoner is 
thick and strong. Oh! by thy right hand, and thy father’s ashes, lose 
not a moment!’” 


“Great Jove!” exclaimed Sallust, starting, “and this day 
—nay, within this hour, perhaps, he dies. What is to be 
done? I will instantly to the pretor.” 

“Nay; not so. The pretor (as well as Pansa, the editor 
himself) is the creature of the mob; and the mob will not 
hear of delay; they will not be balked in the very moment 
of expectation. Besides, the publicity of the appeal would 
forewarn the cunning Egyptian. It is evident that he has 
some interest in these concealments. No; fortunately, thy 
slaves are in thy house,” 

“‘T seize thy meaning,” interrupted Sallust; “arm the slaves 
instantly. The streets are empty. We will ourselves hasten 
to the house of Arbaces and release the prisoners, Quick! 
quick! What ho! Davus there! My gown and sandals, 
the papyrus and a reed. I will write to the pretor, to be- 
seech him to delay the sentence of Glaucus, for that, within 
an hour, we may yet prove him innocent. So, so; that is 


1 The reed (calamus) was used for writing on papyrus and parchment ; 
the stilus for writing on waxen tablets, plates of metal, etc. Letters were 
written sometimes on tablets, sometimes on papyrus. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 191 


well. Hasten with this, Davus, to the pretor, at the amphi- 
theatre. See it given to his own hand. Now then, O ye 
gods! whose providence Epicurus denied, befriend me, and I 
will call Epicurus a liar!” 


CHAPTER IV. 
THE AMPHITHEATRE ONCE MORE. 


Guavucus and Olinthus had been placed together in that 
gloomy and narrow cell in which the criminals of the arena 
awaited their last and fearful struggle. Their eyes, of late 
accustomed to the darkness, scanned the faces of each other 
in this awful hour, and by that dim light, the paleness, which 
chased away the natural hues from either cheek, assumed a yet 
more ashy and ghastly whiteness. Yet their brows were erect 
and dauntless, their limbs did not tremble, their lips were 
compressed and rigid. The religion of the one, the pride of 
the other, the conscious innocence of both, and, it may be, the 
support derived from their mutual companionship, elevated the 
victim into the hero. , 

“Hark! hearest thou that shout? They are growling over 
their human blood,” said Olinthus. | 

“T hear; my heart grows sick; but the gods support me.” 

“The gods! Orash young man! in this hour recognize only 
the One God. Have I not taught thee in the dungeon, wept 
for thee, prayed for thee? In my zeal and in my agony, have 
I not thought more of thy salvation than my own?” 

“Brave friend!” answered Glaucus, solemnly, “I have lis- 
tened to thee with awe, with wonder, and with a secret tendency 
towards conviction. Had our lives been spared, I might grad- 
ually have weaned myself from the tenets of my own faith, 
and inclined to thine; but, in this last hour it were a craven 
thing, and a base, to yield to hasty terror what should only be 
the result of lengthened meditation. Were I to embrace thy 
creed, and cast down my father’s gods, should I not be bribed 


192 THE LASI #AYS OF POMPEII. 


by thy promise of heaven, or awed by thy threats of hell? 
Olinthus, no! Think we of each other with equal charity, — 
I honoring thy sincerity, thou pitying my blindness or my obs 
durate courage. As have been my deeds, such will be my re. 
ward; and the Power or Powers above will not judge harshly 
of human error when it is linked with honesty of purpose and 
truth of heart. Speak we no more of this. Hush! Dost thou 
hear them drag yon heavy body through the passage ? Such 
as that clay will be ours soon.” 

“OQ Heaven! O Christ! already I behold ye!” cried the 
fervent Olinthus, lifting up his hands; “I tremble not: I 
rejoice that the prison-house shall be soon broken.” 

Glaucus bowed his head in silence. He felt the distinction 
between his fortitude and that of his fellow-sufferer. The 
heathen did not tremble; but the Christian exulted. 

The door swung gratingly back, the gleam of spears shot 
along the walls. 

‘“Glaucus the Athenian, thy time has come,” said a loud and 
clear voice; “the lion awaits thee.” 

“Tam ready,” said the Athenian. “Brother and co-mate, 
one last embrace! Bless me, and farewell!” 

The Christian opened his arms; he clasped the young heathen 
to his breast; he kissed his forehead and cheek; he sobbed’ 
aloud; his tears flowed fast and hot over the features of his 
new friend. 

“Oh, could I have converted thee, I had not wept! Oh, 
that I might say to thee, ‘We two shall sup this night in 
Paradise ’ !” 

“Tt may be so yet,” answered the Greek, with a tremulous 
voice. “They whom death part not, may meet yet beyond the 
erave: on the earth, on the beautiful, the beloved earth, fare- 
well forever! Worthy officer, I attend you.” 

Glaucus tore himself away; and when he came forth into 
the air, its breath, which, though sunless, was hot and arid, 
smote witheringly upon him. His frame, not yet restored 
from the effects of the deadly draught, shrank and trembled. 
The officers supported him. 

“Courage!” said one; “thou art young, active, well-knit. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 193 


They give thee a weapon! despair not, and thou mayst yet 
conquer.” 

Glaucus did not reply; but, ashamed of his infirmity, he 
made a desperate and convulsive effort, and regained the firm- 
ness of his nerves. They anointed his body, completely naked, 
save by a cincture round his loins, placed the stilus (vain 
weapon !) in his hand, and led him into the arena. 

And now when the Greek saw the eyes of thousands and 
tens of thousands upon him, he no longer felt that be was 
mortal. All evidence of fear, all fear itself, was gone. A red 
and haughty flush spread over the paleness of his features; be 
towered aloft to the full of his glorious stature. In the elastie 
beauty of his limbs and form, in his intent but unfrowning 
brow, in the high disdain, and in the indomitable soul, which 
breathed visibly, which spoke audibly, from his attitude, his 
lip, his eye, he seemed the very incarnation, vivid and corpo- 
real, of the valor of his land, of the divinity of its worship, 
at once a hero and a god! 

The murmur of hatred and horror at his crime, which had 
greeted his entrance, died into the silence of involuntary ad- 
miration and half-compassionate respect; and with a quick 
and convulsive sigh, that seemed to move the whole mass of 
life as if it were one body, the gaze of the spectators turned 
from the Athenian to a dark uncouth object in the centre of 
the arena. It was the grated den of the lion! 

“By Venus, how warm it is!” said Fulvia; “yet there’ is 
no sun. Would that those stupid sailors! could have fastened 
up that gap in the awning!” 

“Oh, it is warm, indeed! I turn sick, I faint!” said the 
wife of Pansa: even her experienced stoicism giving way at 
the struggle about to take place. 

The lion had been kept without food for twenty-four hours, 
and the animal had, during the whole morning, testified a sin- 
gular and restless uneasiness, which the keeper had attributed 
to the pangs of hunger. Yet its bearing seemed rather that 
of fear than of rage; its roar was painful and distressed; it 

1 Sailors were generally employed in fastening the velaria of the amphi 
theatre. 

VOL. 11.—138 


194 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


hung its head, snuffed the air through the bars, then lay down, 
started again, and again uttered its wild and far-resounding 
cries. And now, in its den, it lay utterly dumb and mute, 
with distended nostrils forced hard against the grating, and 
disturbing, with a heavy breath, the sand below on the arena. 

The editor’s lip quivered, and his cheek grew pale; he 
looked anxiously around, hesitated, delayed; the crowd became 
impatient. Slowly he gave the signal; the keeper, who was 
behind the den, cautiously removed the grating, and the lion 
Jeaped forth with a mighty and glad roar of release. The 
keeper hastily retreated through the grated passage leading 
from the arena, and left the lord of the forest —and his prey. 

Glaucus had bent his limbs so as to give himself the firmest 
posture at the expected rush of the lion, with his small and 
shining weapon raised on high, in the faint hope that one well- 
directed thrust (for he knew that he should have time but for 
one) might penetrate through the eye to the brain of his grim 
foe. 

But, to the unutterable astonishment of all, the beast seemed 
not even aware of the presence of the criminal. 

At the first moment of its release it halted abruptly in the 
arena, raised itself half on end, snuffing the upward air with 
impatient sighs; then suddenly it sprang forward, but not on 
the Athenian. At half-speed it circled round and round the 
space, turning its vast head from side to side with an anxious 
and perturbed gaze, as if seeking only some avenue of escape; 
once or twice it endeavored to leap up the parapet that divided 
it from the audience, and, on failing, uttered rather a baffled 
howl than its deep-toned and kingly roar. It evinced no sign, 
either of wrath or hunger; its tail drooped along the sand, in- 
stead of lashing its gaunt sides; and its eye, though it wan- 
dered at times to Glaucus, rolled again listlessly from him. 
At length, as if tired of attempting to escape, it crept with a 
moan into its cage, and once more laid itself down to rest. 

The first surprise of the assembly at the apathy of the lion 
soon grew converted into resentment at its cowardice; and the 
populace already merged their pity for the fate of Glaucus into 
angry compassion for their own disappointment. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 195 


The editor called to the keeper. 

“How is this? Take the goad, prick him forth, aha then 
close the door of the den.” 

As the keeper, with some fear, but more astonishment, was 
preparing to obey, a loud cry was heard at one of the entrances 
of the arena; there was a confusion, a bustle, voices of remon- 
strance suddenly breaking forth, and suddenly silenced at the 
reply. All eyes turned in wonder, at the interruption, towards 
the quarter of the disturbance; the crowd gave way, and 
suddenly Sallust appeared on the senatorial benches, his hair 
dishevelled, breathless, heated, half exhausted. He cast his 
eyes hastily around the ring. “Remove the Athenian,” he 
eried: “haste, he is innocent! Arrest Arbaces the Egyptian : 
HE is the murderer of Apezcides !” 

“ Art thou mad, O Sallust!” said the pretor, rising from 
his seat. “ What means this raving ? ” 

“Remove the Athenian! Quick! or his blood be on your 
head. Preetor, delay, and you answer with your own life to 
the emperor! I bring with me the eye-witness to the death 
of the priest Apzcides. Room there! stand back! give 
way! People of Pompeii, fix every eye upon Arbaces: there 
he sits! Room there for the priest Calenus !” 

Pale, haggard, fresh from the jaws of famine and of death, 
his face fallen, his eyes dull as a vulture’s, his broad frame 
gaunt as a skeleton, Calenus was supported into the very row 
in which Arbaces sat. His releasers had given him sparingly 
of food; but the chief sustenance that nerved his feeble limbs 
was revenge! 

“The priest Calenus! Calenus!” cried the mob, “Js it 
he? No, it isa dead man!” 

“‘ Tt 7s the priest Calenus,” said the preetor, gravely. “ What 
hast thou to say ?” 

“ Arbaces of Egypt is the murderer of Apzecides, the priest 
of Isis; these eyes saw him deal the blow. It is from the 
dungeon into which he plunged me, it is from the darkness 
and horror of a death by famine, that the gods have raised 
me to proclaim his crime! Release the Athenian —he is 
innocent !” 


196 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


“Tt is for this, then, that the lion spared him. A miracle! 
a miracle!” cried Pansa. | 

“A miracle! a miracle!” shouted the people; “remove 
the Athenian — Arbaces to the lion !” 

And that shout echoed from hill to vale, from coast to sea, 
“ Arbaces to the lion !” 

‘“‘ Officers, remove the accused Glaucus: remove, but guard 
him yet,” said the pretor. “The gods lavish their wonders 
upon this day.” 

As the pretor gave the word of release, there was a cry of 
joy, —a female voice, a child’s voice, and it was of joy! It 
rang through the heart of the assembly with electric force, — 
it was touching, it was holy, that child’s voice! And the 
populace echoed it back with sympathizing congratulation ! 

“Silence!” said the grave preetor: “who is there?” 

“The blind girl, Nydia,” answered Sallust; “itis her hand 
that has raised Calenus from the grave, and delivered Glaucus 
from the lion.” 

“Of this hereafter,” said the preetor. ‘Calenus, priest of 
Isis, thou accusest Arbaces of the murder of Apecides ?” 

66 T do.” 

“Thou didst behold the deed ?” 

“Preetor, with these eyes —” 

“ Knough at present ; the details must be reserved for more 
suiting time and place. Arbaces of Egypt, thou hearest the 
charge against thee; thou hast not yet spoken: what hast 
thou to say ?” 

The gaze of the crowd had been long riveted on Arbaces; 
but not until the confusion which he had betrayed at the first 
charge of Sallust and the entrance of Calenus had subsided. 
At the shout, “Arbaces to the lion!” he had indeed trem- 
bled, and the dark bronze of his cheek had taken a paler hue. 
But he had soon recovered his haughtiness and self-control. 
Proudly he returned the angry glare of the countless eyes 
around him; and replying now to the question of the pretor, 
he said, in that accent so peculiarly tranquil and commanding, 
which characterized his tones, — 

“Preetor, this charge is so mad that it scarcely deserves 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 197 


reply. My first accuser is the noble Sallust, the most intimate 
friend of Glaucus; my second is a priest: I revere his garb 
and calling, but, people of Pompeii! ye know somewhat of 
the character of Calenus; he is griping and gold-thirsty to a 
proverb; the witness of such men is to be bought! Pretor, I 
am innocent!” | 

“ Sallust,” said the magistrate, “ where found you Calenus ? ” 

“In the dungeons of Arbaces.” 

“Heyptian,” said the pretor, frowning, “thou didst, then, 
dare to imprison a priest of the gods: and wherefore ?” 

“Hiear me,” answered Arbaces, rising calmly, but with 
agitation visible in his face. “This man came to threaten 
that he would make against me the charge he has now made, 
unless I would purchase his silence with half my fortune: 
I remonstrated, in vain. Peace there; let not the priest in- 
terrupt me! Noble pretor, and ye, O people! I was a stranger 
in the land; I knew myself innocent of crime, but the witness 
of a priest against me might yet destroy me. In my perplexity 
I decoyed him to the cell whence he has been released, on 
pretence that it was the coffer-house of my gold. I resolved 
to detain him there until the fate of the true criminal was 
sealed, and his threats could avail no longer; but I meant no 
worse. I may have erred, but who amongst ye will not ac- 
knowledge the equity of self-preservation? Were I guilty, why 
was the witness of this priest silent at the trial! Zhen I had not 
detained or concealed him. Why did he not proclaim my guilt 
when I proclaimed that of Glaucus? Pretor, this needs an 
answer. For the rest, I throw myself on your laws. I demand 
their protection. Remove hence the accused and the accuser. 
I will willingly meet, and cheerfully abide by, the decision of 
the legitimate tribunal. This is no place for further parley.” 

“He says right,” said the pretor. “Ho! guards, remove 
Arbaces, guard Calenus! Sallust, we hold you responsible for 
your accusation. Let the sports be resumed.” 

“What!” cried Calenus, turning round to the people, “shall 
Tsis-be thus contemned? Shall the blood of Apacides yet 
ery for vengeance? Shall justice be delayed now, that it may 
be frustrated hereafter? Shall the lion be cheated of his 


198 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


lawful prey? A god! a god! I feel the god rush to my lips! 
To the lion — to the lion with Arbaces !” 

His exhausted frame could support no longer the ferocious 
malice of the priest; he sank on the ground in strong con- 
vulsions; the foam gathered to his mouth; he was as a man, 
indeed, whom a supernatural power had entered. The people 
saw and shuddered. 

“Tt is a god that inspires the holy man! To the lion with 
the Egyptian 1” 

With that cry up sprang, on moved, thousands upon thou- 
sands! They rushed from the heights; they poured down in 
the direction of the Egyptian. In vain did the edile com- 
mand; in vain did the pretor lift his voice and proclaim the 
law. The people had been already rendered savage by the 
exhibition of blood ;.they thirsted for more; their superstition 
was aided by their ferocity. Aroused, inflamed by the spec- 
tacle of their victims, they forgot the authority of their rulers. 
It was one of those dread popular convulsions common to 
crowds wholly ignorant, half free and half servile; and which 
the peculiar constitution of the Roman provinces so frequently 
exhibited. The power of the pretor was as a reed beneath 
the whirlwind; still, at his word the guards had drawn them- 
selves along the lower benches, on which the upper classes sat 
separate from the vulgar. They made but a feeble barrier; 
the waves of the human sea halted for a moment, to enable 
Arbaces to count the exact moment of his doom! In despair, 
and in a terror which beat down even pride, he glanced his 
eyes over the rolling and rushing crowd, when, right above 
them, through the wide chasm which had been left in the 
velaria, he beheld a strange and awful apparition; he beheld, 
and his craft restored his courage! 

He stretched his hand on high; over his lofty brow and 
royal features there came an expression of unutterable solem- 
nity and command. 

“Behold!” he shouted with a voice of thunder, which 
stilled the roar of the crowd; “behold how the gods protect 
the guiltless! The fires of the avenging Orcus burst forth 
against the false witness of my accusers!” 


The eyes of the crowd followed the gesture of the Egyptian, 


and beheld, with ineffable dismay, a vast vapor shooting from 


the summit of Vesuvius, in the form of a gigantic pine-tree,? . 


the trunk, blackness, the branches, fire, —a fire that shifted 
and wavered in its hues with every moment, now fiercely 
luminous, now of a dull and dying red, that again blazed 
terrifically forth with intolerable glare. 

There was a dead, heart-sunken silence, through which 
there suddenly broke the roar of the lion, which was echoed 
back from within the building by the sharper and _ fiercer 
yells of its fellow-beast. Dread seers were they of the Bur- 
den of the Atmosphere, and wild prophets of the wrath to 
come ! 

Then there arose on high the universal shrieks of women ; 
the men stared at each other, but were dumb. At that 
moment they felt the earth shake beneath their feet; the 
walls of the theatre trembled, and beyond in the distance 
they heard the crash of falling roofs; an instant more and 
the mountain-cloud seemed to roll towards them, dark and 
rapid, like a torrent; at the same time it cast forth from its 
bosom a shower of ashes mixed with vast fragments of burn- 
ing stone! Over the crushing vines, over the desolate 
streets, over the amphitheatre itself, far and wide, with 
many a mighty splash in the agitated sea, fell that awful 
shower ! 

No longer thought the crowd of justice or of Arbaces ; safety 
for themselves was their sole thought. Each turned to fly, — 
each dashing, pressing, crushing, against the other. Tramp- 
ling recklessly over the fallen, amidst groans, and oaths, and 


prayers, and sudden shrieks, the enormous crowd vomited it- | 


self forth through the numerous passages. Whither should 
they fly? Some, anticipating a second earthquake, hastened 
to their homes to load themselves with their more costly 
goods, and escape while it was yet time; others, dreading the 
showers of ashes that now fell fast, torrent upon torrent, over 
the streets, rushed under the roofs of the nearest houses, or 
temples, or sheds, — shelter of any kind, — for protection from 


1 Pliny. 


ce 


‘ 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. ¢ 199 ) 


200 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


the terrors of the open air. But darker, and larger, and 
mightier, spread the cloud above them. It was a sudden 
and more ghastly Night rushing upon the realm of Noon! 


CHAPTER V. 


THE CELL OF THE PRISONER AND THE DEN OF THE DEAD. —~ 
GRIEF UNCONSCIOUS OF HORROR. 


StunnED by his reprieve, doubting that he was awake, 
Glaucus had been led by the officers of the arena into a small 
cell within the walls of the theatre. They threw a loose robe 
over his form, and crowded round him in congratulation and 
wonder. There was an impatient and fretful cry without the 
cell; the throng gave way, and the blind girl, led by some 
gentler hand, flung herself at the feet of Glaucus. 

“It is J who have saved thee,” she sobbed; “now let me 
die!” 

“ Nydia, my child! my preserver !” 

“Oh, let me feel thy touch, thy breath! Yes, yes, thou 
livest! We are not too late! That dread door, methought 
it would never yield! And Calenus,—oh! his voice was as 
the dying wind among tombs: we had to wait,—gods! it 
seemed hours ere food and wine restored to him something 
of strength. But thou livest! thou livest yet! and I—JZ 
have saved thee!” 

This affecting scene was soon interrupted by the event just 
described. 

“The mountain! the earthquake!” resounded from side to 
side. The officers fled with the rest; they left Glaucus and 
Nydia to save themselves as they might. 

As the sense of the dangers around them flashed on the 
Athenian, his generous heart recurred to Olinthus. He, too, 
was reprieved from the tiger by the hand of the gods; should 
he be left to a no less fatal death in the neighboring cell ? 
Taking Nydia by the hand, Glaucus hurried across the pas- 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 201 


sages; he gained the den of the Christian! He found Olin- 
thus kneeling and in prayer. 

“ Arise! arise! my friend,” he cried. “Save thyself, and 
fly! See! Nature is thy dread deliverer!” He led forth the 
bewildered Christian, and pointed to a cloud which advanced 
darker and darker, disgorging forth showers of ashes and 
pumice-stones, and bade him hearken to the cries and tramp- 
ling rush of the scattered crowd. 

“This is the hand of God,—God be praised!” said 
Olinthus, devoutly. 

“Fly! seek thy brethren! Concert with them thy escape. 
Farewell!” 

Olinthus did not answer, neither did he mark the retreating 
form of his friend. High thoughts and solemn absorbed his 
soul; and in the enthusiasm of his kindling heart he exulted 
in the mercy of God rather than trembled at the evidence of 
His power. 

At length he roused himself, and hurried on, he scarce 
knew whither. 

The open doors of a dark, desolate cell suddenly appeared 
on his path; through the gloom within there flared and flick- 
ered a single lamp, and by its hght he saw three grim and 
naked forms stretched on the earth in death. His feet were 
suddenly arrested; for amidst the terrors of that drear recess, 
the spoliarium of the arena, he heard a low voice calling on 
the name of Christ. 

He could not resist lingering at that appeal: he entered the 
den, and his feet were dabbled in the slow streams of blood 
that gushed from the corpses over the sand. 

“Who,” said the Nazarene, “ calls upon the Son of God ? ” 

No answer came forth; and turning round, Olinthus beheld, 
by the light of the lamp, an old gray-headed man sitting on 
the floor, and supporting in his lap the head of one of the 
dead. The features of the dead man were firmly and rigidly 
locked in the last sleep; but over the lip there played a fierce 
smile — not the Christian’s smile of hope, but the dark sneer 
of hatred and defiance. Yet on the face still lingered the 
beautiful roundness of early youth. The hair curled thick 


202 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


and glossy over the unwrinkled brow, and the down of man- 
hood but slightly shaded the marble of the hueless cheek. 
And over this face bent one of such unutterable sadness, of 
such yearning tenderness, of such fond and such deep de- 
spair! The tears of the old man fell fast and hot, but he did 
not feel them; and when his lips moved, and he mechanically 
uttered the prayer of his benign and hopeful faith, neither his 
heart nor his sense responded to the words: it was but the 
involuntary emotion that broke from the lethargy of his mind. 
His boy was dead, and had died for him, and the old man’s 
heart was broken. 

“Medon!” said Olinthus, pityingly, “arise, and fly! God 
is forth upon the wings of the elements! The New Gomorrah 
is doomed! Fly, ere the fires consume thee!” 

“He was ever so full of life! he cannot be dead! Come 
hither! place your hand on his heart; sure it beats yet?” 

‘Brother, the soul has fled! We will remember it in our 
prayers. Thou canst not reanimate the dumb clay. Come, 
come — hark! while I speak, yon crashing walls !— hark! 
yon agonizing cries! Not a moment is to be lost! Come!” 

“T hear nothing,” said Medon, shaking his gray hair. “The 
poor boy, — his love murdered him !” 

“Come! come! forgive this friendly force.” 

“What! Who would sever the father from the son?” 
And Medon clasped the body tightly in his embrace, and 
covered it with passionate kisses. “Go!” said he, lifting up 
his face for one moment. “Go! we must be alone!” 

“ Alas!” said the compassionate Nazarene, “Death hath 
severed ye already!” 

The old man smiled very calmly. “No, no, no!” he mut- 
tered, his voice growing lower with each word, — “ Death has 
been more kind !” 

With that his head drooped on his son’s breast, his arms 
relaxed their grasp. Olinthus caught him by the hand; the 
pulse had ceased to beat! The last words of the father were 
the words of truth, — Death had been more kind. 

Meanwhile Glaucus and Nydia were pacing swiftly up the 
perilous and fearful streets. ‘The Athenian had learned from 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 203 


his preserver that Ione was yet in the house of Arbaces. 
Thither he fled, to release —to save her! The few slaves 
whom the Egyptian had left at his mansion when he had re- 
paired in long procession to the amphitheatre had been able 
to offer no resistance to the armed band of Sallust; and when 
afterwards the volcano broke forth, they had huddled together, 
stunned and frightened, in the inmost recesses of the house. 
iiven the tall Ethiopian had forsaken his post at the door; 
and Glaucus (who left Nydia without — the poor Nydia, jeal- 
ous once more, even in such an hour!) passed on through the 
vast hall without meeting one from whom to learn the 
chamber of Ione. Even as he passed, however, the darkness 
that covered the heavens increased so rapidly that it was 
with difficulty he could guide his steps. The flower-wreathed 
columns seemed to reel and tremble, and with every instant 
he heard the ashes fall cranchingly into the roofless peristyle. 
He ascended to the upper rooms; breathless he paced along, 
shouting out aloud the name of Ione ; and at length he heard, 
at the end of a gallery, a voice,-— her voice, in wondering 
reply. To rush forward, to shatter the door, to seize Ione in 
his arms, to hurry from the mansion, seemed to him the work 
of an instant! Scarce had he gained the spot where Nydia 
was, than he heard steps advancing towards the house, and 
recognized the voice of Arbaces, who had returned to seek his 
wealth and Ione ere he fled from the doomed Pompeii. But 
so dense was already the reeking atmosphere, that the foes 
saw not each other, though so near, save that, dimly in the 
gloom, Glaucus caught the moving outline of the snowy robes 
of the Egyptian. 

They hastened onward,— those three. Alas! whither? 
They now saw not a step before them,—the blackness be- 
came utter. They were encompassed with doubt and horror ; 
and the death he had escaped seemed to Glaucus only to have 
changed its form and augmented its victims. 


204 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


CHAPTER VI. 


CALENUS AND BURBO. —DIOMED AND CLODIUS.-——THE GIRL OF 
THE AMPHITHEATRE AND JULIA. 


Tue sudden catastrophe which had, as it were, riven the very 
bonds of society, and left prisoner and jailer alike free, had 
soon rid Calenus of the guards to whose care the pretor had 
consigned him. And when the darkness and the crowd sepa- 
rated the priest from his attendants, he hastened with trembling 
steps towards the temple of his goddess. As he crept along, 
and ere the darkness was complete, he felt himself suddenly 
caught by the robe, and a voice muttered in his ear, — 

“Hist! Calenus! an awful hour!” 

“Ay! by my father’s head! Who art thou? Thy face is 
dim, and thy voice is strange!” 

“ Not know thy Burbo? Fie!” 

“Gods! how the darkness gathers! Ho, ho! by yon terrific 
mountain what sudden blazes of lightning!+ How they dart 
and quiver! Hades is loosed on earth!” 

“Tush! thou believest not these things, Calenus! Now is 
the time to make our fortune!” 

(14 Ha ! 93 

“Tisten! Thy temple is full of gold and precious mum- 
meries. Let us load ourselves with them, and then hasten to 
the sea and embark. None will ever ask an account of the 
doings of this day.” 

“Burbo, thou art right! Hush! and follow me into the 
temple. Who cares now, who sees now, whether thou art a 
priest or not? Follow, and we will share.” 

In the precincts of the temple were many priests gathered 
around the altars, praying, weeping, grovelling in the dust. 
Impostors in safety, they were not the less superstitious in 


1 Volcanic lightnings. These phenomena were especially the characteristic 
of the long subsequent eruption of 1779, and their evidence is visible in the 
tokens of that more awful one now so imperfectly described. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. Ceo ie, 


danger. Calenus passed them, and entered the chamber yet 
to be seen in the south side of the court. Burbo followed 
him; the priest struck a light. Wine and viands strewed the 
table, the remains of a sacrificial feast. 

“A man who has hungered forty-eight hours,” muttered 
Calenus, “has an appetite even in suchatime.” He seized on 
the food and devoured it greedily. Nothing could, perhaps, 
be-more unnaturally horrid than the selfish baseness of these 
villains; for there is nothing more loathsome than the valor 
of avarice. Plunder and sacrilege while the pillars of the 
world tottered to and fro! What an increase to the terrors 
of nature can be made by the vices of man! 

“Wilt thou never have done?” said Burbo, impatiently; 
“thy face purples and thine eyes start already.” 

“Ttis not every day one has such a right to be hungry. O 
Jupiter! what sound is that? The hissing of fiery water! 
What! does the cloud give rain as well as flame! Ha! what! 
shrieks? And, Burbo, how silent all is now! Look forth!” 


Amidst the other horrors, the mighty mountain now cast up | 


columns of boiling water. Blent and kneaded with the half- |. 


burning ashes, the streams fell like seething mud over the | 
streets in frequent intervals. And full, where the priests of | 


Isis had now cowered around the altars, on which they had 
vainly sought to kindle fires and pour incense, one of the 
fiercest of those deadly torrents, mingled with immense frag- 
ments of scoria, had poured its rage. Over the bended forms 
of the priests it dashed: that cry had been of death; that 
silence had been of eternity. The ashes, the pitchy stream, 
sprinkled the, altars, covered the pavement, and half concealed 
the quivering corpses of the priests. 

“They are dead,” said Burbo, terrified for the first time, and 
hurrying back into the cell. “I thought not the danger was 
so near and fatal.” 

The two wretches stood staring at each other; you might 
have heard their hearts beat! Calenus, the less bold by nature, 
but the more griping, recovered first. 

“We must to our task, and away!” he said, in a low whis- 
per, frightened at his own voice. He stepped to the threshold, 


x 


206.” THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEIL 


paused, crossed over the heated floor and his dead brethren to 
the sacred chapel, and called to Burbo to follow; but the 
gladiator quaked, and drew back. 

“So much the better,” thought Calenus; “the more will be 
my booty.” Hastily he loaded himself with the more portable 
treasures of the temple, and thinking no more of his comrade, 
hurried from the sacred place. A sudden flash of lightning 
from the mount showed to Burbo, who stood motionless at the 
threshold, the flying and laden form of the priest. He took 
heart; he stepped forth to join him, when a tremendous shower 
of ashes fell right before his feet, The gladiator shrank back 
once more. Darkness closed him in. But the shower con- 
tinued fast, fast; its heaps rose high and suffocatingly ; deathly 
vapors steamed fromthem. The wretch gasped for breath; he 
sought in despair again to fly: the ashes had blocked up the 
threshold; he shrieked as his feet shrank from the boiling fluid. 
How could he escape ? He could not climb to the open space ; 
nay, were he able, he could not brave its horrors. It were best 
to remain in the cell, protected, at least, from the fatal air. 
He sat down and clenched his teeth. By degrees the atmos- 
phere from without — stifling and venomous — crept into the 
chamber. He could endure it no longer. His eyes, glaring 
round, rested on a sacrificial axe, which some priest had left in 
the chamber: he seized it. With the desperate strength of his 
gigantic arm he attempted to hew his way through the walls. 

Meanwhile the streets were already thinned ; the crowd had 
hastened to disperse itself under shelter; the ashes began to 

»fill up the lower parts of the town; but here and there you 
heard the steps of fugitives cranching them warily, or saw 
their pale and haggard faces by the blue glare of the lightning, 
or the more unsteady glare of torches, by which they endeav- 
ored to steer their steps. But ever and anon the boiling water, 
or the straggling ashes, mysterious and gusty winds, rising and 
dying in a breath, extinguished these wandering lights, and 
with them the last living hope of those who bore them. 

In the street that leads to the gate of Herculaneum, Clodius 
now bent his perplexed and doubtful way. “If I ean gain the 
open country,” thought he, “doubtless there will be various 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 207 


vehicles beyond the gate, and Herculaneum is not far dis- 
tant. Thank Mercury! I have little to lose, and that little is 
about me !” 

“ Holloa! help there, — help!” cried a querulous and fright- 
ened voice. “I have fallen down, my torch has gone out, my 
slaves have deserted me. I am Diomed,—the rich Diomed; 
ten thousand sesterces to him who helps me!” 

At the same moment Clodius felt himself caught by the 
feet. “Ill fortune to thee; let me go, fool!” said the gambler. 

“Oh, help me up! give me thy hand!” 

“There, rise!” 

“Ts this Clodius? I knowthe voice! Whither fliest thou?” 

“Towards Herculaneum.” 

“Blessed be the gods! our way is the same, then, as far as 
the gate. Why not take refuge in my villa? Thou knowest 
the long range of subterranean cellars beneath the basement, 
—that shelter what shower can penetrate ? ” 

“You speak well,” said Clodius, musingly. “And by stor- 
ing the cellar with food, we can remain there even some days, 
should these wondrous storms endure so long.” 

“Oh, blessed be he who invented gates to a city!” cried 
Diomed. ‘See, they have placed a light within yon arch: by 
that let us guide our steps.” 

The air was now still for a few minutes; the lamp from the 
gate streamed out far and clear; the fugitives hurried on, 
they gained the gate, they passed by the Roman sentry; the 
lightning flashed over his livid face and polished helmet, but 
his stern features were composed even in their awe. He re- 
mained erect and motionless at his post. That hour itself 
had not animated the machine of the ruthless majesty of 
Rome into the reasoning and self-acting man. There he stood, 
amidst the crashing elements; he had not received the permis- 
sion to desert his station and escape. 

Diomed and his companions hurried on, when suddenly a 
female form rushed athwart their way. It was the girl whose 
ominous voice had been raised so often and so gladly in antici- 
pation of “the merry show !” 

1 The skeletons of more than one sentry were found at their posts. 


ite 


a 
208, \ THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


«0 Diomed,” she cried, “shelter! shelter! See,” — pointing 


to an infant clasped to her breast, — “see this little one; it is 
mine, —thechild of shame! Ihave never owned it till this hour. 
But now I remember I am a mother. I have plucked it from 
the cradle of its nurse; she had fled. Who could think of the 
babe in such an hour but she who bore it? Save it! save it!” 

“Curses on thy shrill voice! Away, harlot,’ muttered Clo- 
dius between his ground teeth. 

“Nay, girl,” said the more humane Diomed: “follow if thou 
wilt. This way, this way: to the vaults.” 

They hurried on; they arrived at the house of Diomed; 
they laughed aloud as they crossed the threshold, for they 
deemed the danger over. 

Diomed ordered his slaves to carry down into the subterra- 
nean gallery before described a profusion of food, and oil for 
lights ; and there Julia, Clodius, the mother and her babe, the 
greater part of the slaves, and some frightened visitors and 
clients of the neighborhood, sought their shelter. 


CHAPTER VII. 
THE PROGRESS OF THE DESTRUCTION. 


THE cloud, which had scattered so deep a murkiness over 


| the day, had now settled into a solid and impenetrable mass. 


It resembled less even the thickest gloom of night in the open 
air than the close and blind darkness of some narrow room. 
But in proportion as the blackness gathered did the lightnings 
around Vesuvius increase in their vivid and scorching glare. 
Nor was their horrible beauty confined to the usual hues of 
fire ; no rainbow ever rivalled their varying and prodigal dyes. 
Now brightly blue as the most azure depth of a southern sky ; 
now of alivid and snake-like green, darting restlessly to and 
fro, as the folds of an enormous serpent; now of a lurid and 
intolerable crimson, gushing forth through the columns of 
1 Pliny. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 209 


smoke, far and wide, and lighting up the whole city from arch 
to arch; then suddenly dying into a sickly paleness, ike the 
ghost of their own life. 


In the pauses of the showers you heard the rumbling of the \ 
earth beneath, and the groaning waves of the tortured sea; or, | 


lower still, and audible but to the watch of intensest fear, the 
grinding and hissing murmur of the escaping gases through 
the chasms of the distant mountain. Sometimes the cloud 
appeared to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning, 


to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster; | J ~~ 


shapes, striding across the gloom, hurtling one upon the other, 
and vanishing swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade; so 
that to the eyes and fancies of the affrighted wanderers, the 
unsubstantial vapors were as the bodily forms of gigantic foes, 
the agents of terror and of death.! 

The ashes in many places were already knee-deep; and the 
boiling showers which came from the steaming breath of the 
voleano forced their way into the houses, bearing with them a 
strong and suffocating vapor. In some places, immense frag- 
ments of rock, hurled upon the house-roofs, bore down along 
the streets masses of confused ruin, which yet more and more, 
with every hour, obstructed the way; and as the day ad- 
vanced, the motion of the earth was more sensibly felt; the 
footing seemed to slide and creep, nor could chariot or litter 
be kept steady, even on the most level ground. 

Sometimes the huger stones, striking against each other 
as they fell, broke into countless fragments, emitting sparks 
of fire, which caught whatever was combustible within their 
reach; and along the plains beyond the city the darkness was 
now terribly relieved, for several houses, and even vineyards, 
had been set on flames; and at various intervals the fires rose 
sullenly and fiercely against the solid gloom. To add to this 
partial relief of the darkness, the citizens had, here and there, 
in the more public places, such as the porticos of temples 
and the entrances to the forum, endeavored to place rows of 
torches; but these rarely continued long; the showers and 
the winds extinguished them, and the sudden darkness into 

1 Dion Cassius. 
VOL. 11.—14 


— 


210 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPETI. 


which their sudden birth was converted had something in it 
doubly terrible and doubly impressing on the impotence of 
human hopes, the lesson of despair. 

Frequently, by the momentary hght of these torches, parties 
of fugitives encountered each other, some hurrying towards 
the sea, others flying from the sea back to the land; for the 
ocean had retreated rapidly from the shore: an utter dark- 
ness lay over it, and upon its groaning and tossing waves the 
storm of cinders and rock fell without the protection which 
the streets and roofs afforded to the land. Wild, haggard, 
ghastly with supernatural fears, these groups encountered 
each other, but without the leisure to speak, to consult, to 
advise; for the showers fell now frequently, though not eon- 
tinuously, extinguishing the lights, which showed to each 
band the death-like faces of the other, and hurrying all to 
seek refuge beneath the nearest shelter. The whole elements 
of civilization were broken up. Ever and anon, by the flicker- 
ing lights, you saw the thief hastening by the most solemn 
authorities of the law, laden with, and fearfully chuckling over, 
the produce of his sudden gains. If, in the darkness, wife 
was separated from husband, or parent from child, vain was 
the hope of reunion. Each hurried blindly and confusedly 
on. Nothing in all the various and complicated machinery of 
social life was left, save the primal law of self-preservation ! 

Through this awful scene did the Athenian make his way, 
accompanied by lone and the blind girl. Suddenly a rush of 
hundreds, in their path to the sea, swept by them. Nydia 
was torn from the side of Glaucus, who, with Ione, was borne 
rapidly onward; and when the crowd (whose forms they saw 
not, so thick was the gloom) were gone, Nydia was still 
separated from their side. Glaucus shouted her name. No 
answer came. ‘They retraced their. steps,—in vain: they 
could not discover her; it was evident that she had been 
swept along some opposite direction by the human current. 
Their friend, their preserver, was lost! And hitherto Nydia 
had been their guide. Her blindness rendered the scene fa- 
miliar to her alone. Accustomed, through a perpetual night, 
to thread the windings of the city, she had led them unerr- 


Hy 
a 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 211 


ingly towards the sea-shore, by which they had resolved to 
hazard an escape. Now, which way could they wend? All 
was rayless to them,—a maze without a clew. Wearied, 
despondent, bewildered, they, however, passed along, the 
ashes falling upon their heads, the fragmentary stones dash- 
ing up in sparkles before their feet. 

“ Alas! alas!” murmured Ione, “I can go no eurthon? my 
steps sink among the scorching cinders. Fly, dearest !— be- 
loved, fly! and leave me to my fate!” 

“Hush, my betrothed! my bride! Death with thee is 
sweeter than life without thee! Yet, whither —oh! whither, 
can we direct ourselves through the gloom? Already it seems 
that we have made but a circle, and are in the very spot which 
we quitted an hour ago.” 

“QO gods! yon rock,—see, it hath riven the roof before 
us! It is death to move through the streets!” 

“Blessed lightning! See, Ione —see! the portico of the 
Temple of Fortune is before us. Let us creep beneath it; it 
will protect us from the showers.” 

He caught his beloved in his arms, and with difficulty and 
labor gained the temple. He bore her to the remoter and 
more sheltered part of the portico, and leaned over her that 
he might shield her with his own form from the lightning 
and the showers! The beauty and the unselfishness of love 
could hallow even that dismal time! 

“Who is there?” said the trembling and hollow voice of 
one who had preceded them in their place of refuge. “Yet 
what matters? The crush of the ruined world forbids to us 
friends or foes.” 

Tone turned at the sound of that voice, and, with a faint 
shriek, cowered again beneath the arms of Glaucus: and he, 
looking in the direction of the voice, beheld the cause of her 
alarm. Through the darkness glared forth two burning eyes, 
— the lightning flashed and lingered athwart the temple, — and 
Glaucus, with a shudder, perceived the lion to which he had 
been doomed couched beneath the pillars; and, close beside 
it, unwitting of the vicinity, lay the giant form of him who 
had accosted them, — the wounded gladiator, Niger. 


212 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


That lightning had revealed to each other the form of beast 
and man; yet the instinct of both was quelled. Nay, the lion 
crept near and nearer to the gladiator, as for companionship; 
and the gladiator did not recede or tremble. The Revolution 
of Nature had dissolved her lighter terrors as well as her 
wonted ties. 


While they were thus terribly protected, a group of men and 


women, bearing torches, passed by the temple. They were of 
the congregation of the Nazarenes, and a sublime and un- 
earthly emotion had not, indeed, quelled their awe, but it had 
robbed awe of fear. They had long believed, according to the 
error of the early Christians, that the Last Day was at hand; 
they imagined now that the day had come. 

“Woe! woe!” cried, in a shrill and piercing voice, the 
elder at their head. “Behold! the Lord descendeth to judg- 
ment! He maketh fire come down from heaven in the sight 
of men! Woe! woe! ye strong and mighty! Woe to ye of 
the fasces and the purple! Woe to the idolater and the wor- 
shipper of the beast! Woe to ye who pour forth the blood of 
saints, and gloat over the death-pangs of the sons of God! 
Woe to the harlot of the sea! Woe! woe!” 

And with a loud and deep chorus the troop chanted forth 
along the wild horrors of the air, “ Woe to the harlot of the 
sea! Woe! woe!” 

The Nazarenes paced slowly on, their torches still flickering 
in the storm, their voices still raised in menace and solemn 
warning, till, lost amid the windings in the streets, the dark- 
ness of the atmosphere and the silence of death again fell over 
the scene. 

There was one of the frequent pauses in the showers, and 
Glaucus encouraged Ione once more to proceed. Just as they 
stood, hesitating, on the last step of the portico, an old man, 
with a bag in his right hand and leaning upon a youth, tottered 
by. The youth bore a torch. Glaucus recognized the two as 
father and son, — miser and prodigal. 

“Father,” said the youth, “if you cannot move more swiftly, 
I must leave you, or we both perish!” 

“Fly, boy, then, and leave thy sire !” 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 213 


“But I cannot fly to starve; give me thy bag of gold!” 
And the youth snatched at it. 

“ Wretch! wouldst thou rob thy father?” 

“ Ay! who can tell the tale in this hour? Miser, perish!” 

The boy struck the old man to the ground, plucked the bag 
from his relaxing hand, and fled onward with a shrill yell. 

“Ye gods!” cried Glaucus; “are ye blind, then, even in the 
dark ? Such crimes may well confound the guiltless with the 
guilty in one common ruin. Ione, on! on!” 


CHAPTER VIII. 
ARBACES ENCOUNTERS GLAUCUS AND IONE. 


ADVANCING, as men grope for escape in a dungeon, Ione 
and her lover continued their uncertain way. At the moments 
when the volcanic lightnings lingered over the streets, they 
were enabled, by that awful light, to steer and guide their 
progress: yet little did the view it presented to them cheer 
or encourage their path. In parts, where the ashes lay dry 
and uncommixed with the boiling torrents cast upward from 
‘the mountain at capricious intervals, the surface of the earth 
presented a leprous and ghastly white. In other places, cinder 
and rock lay matted in heaps, from beneath which emerged the 
half-hid limbs of some crushed and mangled fugitive. The 
groans of the dying were broken by wild shrieks of women’s 
terror, now near, now distant, which, when heard in the utter 
darkness, were rendered doubly appalling by the crushing 
sense of helplessness and the uncertainty of the perils around; 
and clear and distinct through all were the mighty and various 
noises from the Fatal Mountain, —its rushing winds, its whirl- 
ing torrents, and from time to time the burst and roar of 
some more fiery and fierce explosion. And ever as the winds 
swept howling along the street they bore sharp streams of 
burning dust, and such sickening and poisonous vapors as 
took away, for the instant, breath and consciousness, followed 


A 214 / THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


bya rapid revulsion of the arrested blood, and a tingling sen- 
sation of agony trembling through every nerve and fibre of 
the frame. 

“Oh, Glaucus, my beloved! my own! take me to thy 
arms! One embrace! let me feel thy arms around me, and 
in that embrace let me die; I can no more!” : 

“For my sake, for my life, courage yet, sweet Ione: my 
life is linked with thine. And see — torches —this way! Lo! 
how they brave the wind! Ha! they live through the storm, 
doubtless fugitives to the sea! we will join them.” 

As if to aid and reanimate the lovers, the winds and showers 
came to a sudden pause; the atmosphere was profoundly still, 
the mountain seemed at rest, gathering, perhaps, fresh fury 
for its next burst: the torch-bearers moved quickly on. “We 
are nearing the sea,” said, ina calm voice, the person at their 
head. “Liberty and wealth to each slave who survives this 
day! Courage! I tell you that the gods themselves have 
assured me of deliverance! On!” 

Redly and steadily the torches flashed full on the eyes of 
Glaucus and Ione, who lay trembling and exhausted on his 
bosom. Several slaves were bearing, by the light, panniers 
and coffers, heavily laden; in front of them, a drawn sword 
in his hand, towered the lofty form of Arbaces. 

“ By my fathers!” cried the Egyptian, “ Fate smiles upon 
me even through these horrors, and, amidst the dreadest 
aspects of woe and death, bodes me happiness and love. 
Away, Greek! I claim my ward, Ione!” 

“Traitor and murderer!” cried Glaucus, glaring upon his 
foe, ‘‘ Nemesis hath guided thee to my revenge, — a just sacri- 
fice to the shades of Hades, that now seemed loosed on earth ! 
Approach, touch but the hand of Ione, and thy weapon shall 
be as a reed: I will tear thee limb from limb!” 

Suddenly, as he spoke, the place became lighted with an 
intense and lurid glow. Bright and gigantic through the 
darkness, which closed around it like the walls of hell, the 
mountain shone, —a pile of fire! Its summit seemed riven 
in two; or rather, above its surface there seemed to rise two 
monster shapes, each confronting each, as Demons contending 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 215 


for a World. These were of one deep blood-red hue of fire, 
which lighted up the whole atmosphere far and wide; but, 


below, the nether part of the mountain was still dark and | 
shrouded, save in three places, adown which flowed serpentine | 


and irregular rivers of the molten lava.t Darkly red through 
the profound gloom of their banks, they flowed slowly on, as 
towards the devoted city. Over the broadest there seemed to 
spring a cragged and stupendous arch, from which, as from 
the jaws of hell, gushed the sources of the sudden Phlegethon; 
and through the stilled air was heard the rattling of the frag- 
ments of rock, hurtling one upon another as they were borne 
down the fiery cataracts, darkening, for one instant, the spot 
where they fell, and suffused, the next, in the burnished hues 
of the flood along which they floated ! 

The slaves shrieked aloud, and, cowering, hid their faces. 
The Egyptian himself stood transfixed to the spot, the glow 
lighting up his commanding features and jewelled robes. 
High behind him rose a tall column that supported the bronze 
statue of Augustus; and the imperial image seemed changed 
to a shape of fire! 

With his left hand circled round the form of Ione, with his 
right arm raised in menace, and grasping the stilus which was 
to have been his weapon in the arena, and which he still fortu- 
nately bore about him, with his brow knit, his lips apart, the 
wrath and menace of human passions arrested as by a charm, 
upon his features, Glaucus fronted the Egyptian ! 

Arbaces turned his eyes from the mountain ; they rested on 
the form of Glaucus! He paused a moment. “Why,” he 
muttered, “should I hesitate? Did not the stars foretell the 
only crisis of imminent peril to which I was subjected? Is 
not that peril past ? 

“The soul,” cried he aloud, “can brave, the wreck of worlds 
and the wrath of imaginary gods! By that soul will I conquer 
to the last! Advance, slaves! Athenian, resist me, and thy 
blood be on thine own head! Thus, then, I regain Ione!” 

He advanced one step; it was his last on earth! The ground 
shook beneath him with a convulsion that cast all around upon 


1 See note (a) at the end. 


ppm 


ee 


216 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


its surface. A simultaneous crash resounded through the city, 
as down toppled many a roof and pillar! The lightning, as 
if caught by the metal, lingered an instant on the Imperial 
Statue, then shivered bronze and column! Down fell the ruin, 
echoing along the street, and riving the solid pavement where 
it crashed! The prophecy of the stars was fulfilled. 

The sound, the shock, stunned the Athenian for several 
moments. When he recovered, the light still illumined the — 
scene, the earth still slid and trembled beneath! Ione lay © 
senseless on the ground; but he saw her not yet: his eyes © 
were fixed upon a ghastly face that seemed to emerge, without 
limbs or trunk, from the huge fragments of the shattered 
column, a face of unutterable pain, agony, and despair! The 
eyes shut and opened rapidly, as if sense were not yet fled; 
the lips quivered and grinned; then sudden stillness and 
darkness fell over the features, yet retaining that aspect of 
horror never to be forgotten ! 

So perished the wise Magician, the great Arbaces, the Her- 
mes of the Burning Belt, the last of the royalty of Egypt! 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE DESPAIR OF THE LOVERS. — THE CONDITION OF THE 
MULTITUDE. 


GuaAucus turned in gratitude but in awe, caught Ione once 
more in his arms, and fled along the street, that was yet in- 
tensely luminous. But suddenly a duller shade fell over the 
air. Instinctively he turned to the mountain, and behold! 
one of the two gigantic crests, into which the summit had 
been divided, rocked and wavered to and fro; and then, with 
a sound, the mightiness of which no language can describe, 
it fell from its burning base, and rushed, an avalanche of fire, 
down the sides of the mountain! At the same instant gushed 
forth a volume of blackest smoke, rolling on over air, sea, 
and earth. 


# 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 217 


Another — and another —and another shower of ashes far 
more profuse than before, scattered fresh desolation along the 
streets. Darkness once more wrapped them as a veil; and 
Glaucus, his bold heart at last quelled and despairing, sank 
beneath the cover of an arch, and, clasping Ione to his heart, 
—a bride on that couch of ruin, — resigned himself to die. 

Meanwhile Nydia, when separated by the throng from Glau- 
cus and Ione, had in vain endeavored to regain them. In vain 
she raised that plaintive cry so peculiar to the blind; it was 
lost amidst a thousand shrieks of more selfish terror. Again 
and again she returned to the spot where they had been divided, 
—to find her companions gone, to seize every fugitive, to 
inquire of Glaucus, to be dashed aside in the impatience of 
distraction. Who in that hour spared one thought to his 
neighbor? Perhaps in scenes of universal horror, nothing is 
more horrid than the unnatural selfishness they engender. At 
length it occurred to Nydia, that as it had been resolved to seek 
the sea-shore for escape, her most probable chance of rejoining 
her companions would be to persevere in that direction. Guid- 
ing her steps, then, by the staff which she always carried, she 
continued, with incredible dexterity, to avoid the masses of 
ruin that encumbered the path, to thread the streets, and 
unerringly (so blessed now was that accustomed darkness, so 
afflicting in ordinary life!) to take the nearest direction to the 
sea-side. 

Poor girl! her courage was beautiful to behold, and Fate 
seemed to favor one so helpless. The boiling torrents touched 
her not, save by the general rain which accompanied them ; 
the huge fragments of scoria shivered the pavement before 
and beside her, but spared that frail form: and when the lesser 
ashes fell over her, she shook them away with a slight tremor, 
and dauntlessly resumed her course. 

Weak, exposed yet fearless, supported but by one wish, she 
was a very emblem of Psyche in her wanderings; of Hope, 
walking through the Valley of the Shadow; of the soul it- 

1 « A heavy shower of ashes rained upon us, which every now and then we 


were, obliged to shake off, otherwise we should have been crushed and buried 
in the heap.” — Pliny. 


218 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


self, lone but undaunted, amidst the dangers and the snares 
of life! 

Her path was, however, constantly impeded by the crowds 
that now groped amidst the gloom, now fled in the temporary 
glare of the lightnings across the scene; and at length, a 
group of torch-bearers rushing full against her, she was thrown 
down with some violence. 

“What!” said the voice of one of the party, “is this the 
brave blind girl? By Bacchus, she must not be left here to 
die! Up! my Thessalian! So—so. Are you hurt? That’s 
well. Come along with us! we are for the shore!” 

“QO Sallust! It is thy voice! The gods be thanked! 
Glaucus! Glaucus! have ye seen him ?” 

“NotI. He is doubtless out of the city by this time. The 
gods who saved him from the lion will save him from the 
burning mountain.” 

As the kindly epicure thus encouraged Nydia, he drew her 
along with him towards the sea, heeding not her passionate 
entreaties that he would linger yet a while to search for Glau- 
cus; and still, in the accent of despair, she continued to 
shriek out that beloved name, which, amidst all the roar of 
the convulsed elements, kept alive a music at her heart. 

The sudden illumination, the bursts of the floods of lava, 
and the earthquake, which we have already described, chanced 
when Sallust and his party had just gained the direct path 
leading from the city to the port; and here they were arrested 
by an immense crowd, more than half the population of the 
city. They spread along the field without the walls, thou- 
sands upon thousands, uncertain whither to fly. The sea had 
retired far from the shore; and they who had fled to it had 
been so terrified by the agitation and preternatural shrinking 
of the element, the gasping forms of the uncouth sea things 
which the waves had left upon the sand, and by the sound of 
the huge stones cast from the mountain into the deep, that they 
had returned again to the land, as presenting the less frightful 
aspect of the two. Thus the two streams of human beings, the 
one seaward, the other from the sea, had met together, feeling 
a sad comfort in numbers, arrested in despair and doubt. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 219 


“The world is to be destroyed by fire,” said an old man in 
long loose robes, a philosopher of the Stoic school: “Stoic 
and Epicurean wisdom have alike agreed in this prediction ; 
and the hour is come!” 

“Yea; the hour is come!” cried a loud voice, solemn but 
not fearful. 

Those around turned in dismay. The voice came from 
above them. It was the voice of Olinthus, who, surrounded 
by his Christian friends, stood upon an abrupt eminence on 
which the old Greek colonists had raised a temple to Apollo, 
now timeworn and half in ruin. 

As he spoke, there came that sudden illumination which 
had heralded the death of Arbaces, and glowing over that 
mighty multitude, awed, crouching, breathless, never on earth 
had the faces of men seemed so haggard; never had meeting 
of mortal beings been so stamped with the horror and sublim- 
ity of dread; never, till the last trumpet sounds, shall such 
meeting be seen again! And above rose the form of Olinthus, 
with outstretched arm and prophet brow, girt with the living 
fires. And the crowd knew the face of him they had doomed 
to the fangs of the beast, then their victim, now their warner ; 
and through the stillness again came his ominous voice, — 

“The hour is come!” 

The Christians repeated the cry. It was caught up; it was 
echoed from side to side; woman and man, childhood and 
old age, repeated, not aloud, but in a smothered and dreary 
murmur, — 

“THE HOUR IS COME!” 

At that moment a wild yell burst through the air; and, 
thinking only of escape, whither it knew not, the terrible tiger 
of the desert leaped amongst the throng and hurried through 
its parted streams. And so came the earthquake, and so dark- 
ness once more fell over the earth! 

And now new fugitives arrived. Grasping the treasures no 
longer destined for their lord, the slaves of Arbaces joined the 
throng. One only of their torches yet flickered on. It was 
borne by Sosia; and its light falling on the face of Nydia, he 
recognized the Thessalian. 


220 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


¢¢ What avails thy liberty now, blind girl ?” said the slave. 

“Who art thou? Canst thou tell me of Glaucus ? ” 

“Ay; I saw him but a few minutes since.” 

“Blessed be thy head! where ?” 

“Couched beneath the arch of the forum, dead or dying! 
Gone to rejoin Arbaces, who is no more!” 

Nydia uttered not a word; she slid from the side of Sallust; 
silently she glided through those behind her, and retraced her 
“ steps to the city. She gained the forum, the arch; she stooped 
down, she felt around, she called on the name of Glaucus. 

A weak voice answered, “ Who calls on me? Is it the voice 
of the Shades? Lo! I am prepared!” 

“ Arise! follow me! Take my hand! Glaucus, thou shalt 
be saved!” 

In wonder and sudden hope, Glaucus arose. “ Nydia still? 
Ah! thou, then, art safe!” 

The tender joy of his voice pierced the heart of the poor 
Thessalian, and she blessed him for his thought of her. 

Half leading, half carrying Ione, Glaucus followed his guide. 
With admirable discretion she avoided the path which led to 
the crowd she had just quitted, and, by another route, sought 
the shore. 

After inany pauses and incredible perseverance, they gained 
the sea, and joined a group, who, bolder than the rest, resolved 
to hazard any peril rather than continue in sucha scene. In 
darkness they put forth to sea; but, as they cleared the land 
and caught new aspects of the mountain, itschannels of molten 
fire threw a partial redness over the waves. 

Utterly exhausted and worn out, Ione slept on the breast of 
Glaucus, and Nydia lay at his feet. Meanwhile the showers 
of dust and ashes, still borne aloft, fell into the wave, and 
scattered their snows over the deck. Far and wide, borne by 
the winds, those showers descended upon the remotest climes, 
startling even the swarthy African, and whirled along the an- 
tique soil of Syria and of Egypt.? 


1 Dion Cassius. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 221 


CHAPTER X. 
THE NEXT MORNING. — THE FATE OF NYDIA. 


Anp meekly, softly, beautifully dawned at last the light 
over the trembling deep! The winds were sinking into rest; 
the foam died from the glowing azure of that delicious sea. 
Around the east, thin mists caught gradually the rosy hues 
that heralded the morning; Light was about to resume her 
reign. Yet still, dark and massive in the distance, lay the 
broken fragments of the destroying cloud, from which red 
streaks, burning dimlier and more dim, betrayed the yet roll- 
ing fires of the mountain of the “Scorched Fields.” The 
white walls and gleaming columns that had adorned the lovely 
coasts were no more. Sullen and dull were the shores so 
lately crested by the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The 
darlings of the Deep were snatched from her embrace! Cen- 
tury after century shall the mighty Mother stretch forth her 
azure arms, and know them not, moaning round the sepulchres 
of the Lost! 

There was no shout from the mariners at the dawning light; 
it had come too gradually, and they were too wearied for such 
sudden bursts of joy; but there was a low, deep murmur of 
thankfulness amidst those watchers of the long night. They 
looked at each other and smiled; they took heart; they felt 
ence more that there was a world around and a God above 
them! And inthe feeling that the worst was passed, the over- 
_ wearied ones turned round, and fell placidly to sleep. In the 
growing light of the skies there came the silence which night 
had wanted, and the bark drifted calmly onward to its port. 
A few other vessels, bearing similar fugitives, might be seen in 
the expanse, apparently motionless, yet gliding also on. There 
was a sense of security, of companionship, and of hope, in the 
sight of their slender masts and white sails. What beloved 
friends, lost and missed in the gloom, might they not bear to 
safety and to shelter! 


222 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


In the silence of the general sleep, Nydia rose gently. She 
bent over the face of Glaucus, she inhaled the deep breath of 
his heavy slumber; timidly and sadly she kissed his brow, his 
lips. She felt for his hand; it was locked in that of Ione: 
she sighed deeply, and her face darkened. Again she kissed 
his brow, and with her hair wiped from it the damps of night. 
‘‘ May the gods bless you, Athenian!” she murmured: “ may 
you be happy with your beloved one; may you sometimes 
remember Nydia! Alas! she is of no further use on earth!” 

With these words she turned away. Slowly she crept along 
by the fori, or platforms, to the farther side of the vessel, and 
pausing, bent low over the deep; the cool spray dashed up- 
ward on her feverish brow. “It is the kiss of death,” she 
said; “it is welcome.” ‘The balmy air played through her 
waving tresses; she put them from her face, and raised those 
eyes — so tender, though so lightless —to the sky, whose soft 
face she had never seen! 

“No, no!” she said, half aloud, and in a musing and 
thoughtful tone, “I cannot endure it; this jealous, exacting 
love, —it shatters my whole soul in madness! I might harm 
him again, wretch that I was! I have saved him, twice saved 
him, happy, happy thought: why not de happy? It is the 
last glad thought I can ever know. O sacred Sea! I hear 
thy voice invitingly: it hath a freshening and joyous call. 
They say that in thy embrace is dishonor, that thy victims 
cross not the fatal Styx: be it so! I would not meet him in 
the Shades, for I should meet him still with her/ Rest, rest, 
rest! there is no other Elysium for a heart like mine!” 

A sailor, half dozing on the deck, heard a slight splash on 
the waters. Drowsily he looked up, and behind, as the vessel 
merrily bounded on, he fancied he saw something white above 
the waves; but it vanished in an instant. He turned round 
again, and dreamed of his home and children. 

When the lovers awoke, their first thought was of each 
other, their next of Nydia! She was not to be found: none 
had seen her since the night. Every crevice of the vessel was 
searched; there was no trace of her. Mysterious from first 
to last, the blind Thessalian had vanished forever from the 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 223 


living world! They guessed her fate in silence: and Glaucus 
and Ione, while they drew nearer to each other (feeling each 
other the world itself), forgot their deliverance, and wept as 
for a departed sister. 


CHAPTER THE LAST. 
WHEREIN ALL THINGS CEASE. 


Letter from Glaucus to Sallust, ten years after the destruction 
of Pompei. 
ATHENS. 

‘¢ GLAucuS to his beloved Sallust, greeting and health! You request 
me to visit you at Rome: no, Sallust, come rather to me at Athens! 
I have forsworn the Imperial City, its tumult and hollow joys. In my 
own land henceforth I dwell forever. The ghosts of our departed 
greatness are dearer to me than the gaudy life of your loud prosperity. 
There is a charm to me which no other spot can supply, in the porticos 
hallowed still by holy and venerable shades. In the olive-groves of 
Ilissus I still hear the voice of poetry: on the heights of Phyle the 
clouds of twilight seem yet the shrouds of departed freedom, — the 
heralds, the heralds of the morrow that shall come! You smile at my 
enthusiasm, Sallust! Better be hopeful in chains than resigned to 
their glitter. \You tell me you are sure that I cannot enjoy life in these 
melancholy haunts of a fallen majesty. You dwell with rapture on the 
Roman splendors, and the luxuries of the imperial court. My Sallust, 
“non sum qualis eram’ (I am not what | was)! The events of my life 
have sobered the bounding blood of my youth. My health has never 
quite recovered its wonted elasticity ere it felt the pangs of disease, and 
languished in the damps of a criminal’s dungeon. My mind has never 
shaken off the dark shadow of the Last Day of Pompeii, the horror and 
the desolation of that awful ruin! Our beloved, our remembered Nydia! 
I have reared a tomb to her shade, and I see it every day from the 
window of my study. It keeps alive in me a tender recollection — 
a not unpleasing sadness — which are but a fitting homage to her 
fidelity, and the mysteriousness of her early death. Ione gathers the 
flowers, but my own hand wreathes them daily around the tomb! She 
was worthy of a tomb in Athens ! 


224 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 


‘You speak of the growing sect of the Christians at Rome. Sal- 
lust, to you I may confide my secret; I have pondered much over that 
faith, — I have adopted it. After the destruction of Pompeii, I met once 
more with Olinthus, — saved, alas! only for a day, and falling after- 
wards a martyr to the indomitable energy of his zeal. In my preserva- 
tion from the lion and the earthquake he taught me to behold the hand 
of the unknown God! [I listened, believed, adored! My own, my 
more than ever beloved Ione has also embraced the creed, —a creed, 
Sallust, which, shedding light over this world, gathers its concentrated 
glory, like a sunset, over the next! We know that we are united in 
the soul, as in the flesh, forever and forever! Ages may roll on, our 
very dust be dissolved, the earth shrivelled like a scroll; but round 
and round the circle of eternity rolls the wheel of life, imperishable, 
unceasing! And as the earth from the sun, so immortality drinks hap- 
piness from virtue, which is the smile upon the face of God! Visit me, 
then, Sallust ; bring with you the learned scrolls of Epicurus, Pythag- 
oras, Diogenes ; arm yourself for defeat ; and let us, amidst the groves 
of Academus, dispute, under a surer guide than any granted to our 
fathers, on the mighty problem of the true ends of life and the nature 
of the soul. 

‘¢ Tone — at that name my heart yet beats —TIone is by my side as I 
write: I lift my eyes, and meet her smile. The sunlight quivers over 
Hymettus, and along my garden I hear the hum of the summer bees. 
Am I happy, ask you? Oh, what can Rome give me equal to what I 
possess at Athens? Here, everything awakens the soul and inspires 
the affections; the trees, the waters, the hills, the skies, are those of 
Athens !— fair, though mourning, — mother of the Poetry and the 
Wisdom of the World. In my hall I see the marble faces of my ances- 
tors. In the Ceramicus I survey their tombs! In the streets, I behold 
the hand of Phidias and the soul of Pericles. Harmodius, Aristogiton, 
they are everywhere ; but in our hearts — in mine, at least — they shall 
not perish! If anything can make me forget that I am an Athenian 
and not free, it is partly the soothing, the love — watchful, vivid, sleep- 
less —of Ione: a love that has taken a new sentiment in our new 
creed!: a love which none of our poets, beautiful though they be, had 
shadowed forth in description; for, mingled with religion, it partakes 
of religion; it is blended with pure and unworldly thoughts; it is that 
which we way hope to carry through eternity, and keep, therefore, 
white and unsullied, that we may not blush to confess it to our God! 
This is the true type of the dark fable of our Grecian Eros and Psyche ; 


1 See note (d) at the end. 


Oe 4 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 225 


it is, In truth, the soul asleep in the arms of love. And if this, our 
love, support me partly against the fever of the desire for freedom, my 
religion supports me more; for whenever I would grasp the sword and 
sound the shell, and rush to a new Marathon (but Marathon without 
victory), I feel my despair at the chilling thought of my country’s im- 
potence, the crushing weight of the Roman yoke, comforted, at least, 
by the thought that earth is but the beginning of life; that the glory 
of a few years matters little in the vast space of eternity ; that there is 
no perfect freedom till the chains of clay fall from the soul, and all 
space, all time, become its heritage and domain. Yet, Sallust, some 
mixture of the soft Greek blood still mingles with my faith. I can 
share not the zeal of those who see crime and eternal wrath in men who 
cannot believe as they. I shudder not at the creed of others. I dare 
not curse them; I pray the great Father to convert. This lukewarm- 
ness exposes me to some suspicion amongst the Christians: but I for- 
give it; and, not offending openly the prejudices of the crowd, I am 
thus enabled to protect my brethren from the danger of the law, and 
the consequences of their own zeal. If moderation seem to me the 
natural creature of benevolence, it gives, also, the greatest scope to 
beneficence. 

‘“Such, then, O Sallust! is my life, such my opinions. In this man- 
ner I greet existence and await death. And thou, glad-hearted and 
kindly pupil of Epicurus, thou — But come hither, and see what enjoy- 
ments, what hopes are ours; and not the splendor of imperial banquets, 
nor the shouts of the crowded circus, nor the noisy forum, nor the glit- 
tering theatre, nor the luxuriant gardens, nor the voluptuous baths of 
Rome, shall seem to thee to constitute a life of more vivid and uninter- 
rupted happiness than that which thou so unreasonably pitiest as the 
career of Glaucus the Athenian! Farewell!” 

Nearly seventeen centuries had rolled away when the city 
of Pompeii was disinterred from its silent tomb,/all vivid with 
undimmed hues; its walls fresh as if painted yesterday; not 
a hue faded on the rich mosaic of its floors; in its forum the 
half-finished columns as left by the workman’s hand; in its 
gardens the sacrificial tripod ; in its halis the chest of treasure ; 
in its baths the strigil; in its theatres the counter of admis- 
sion; in its saloons the furniture and the lamp; in its triclinia 
the fragments of the last feast; in its cubicula the perfumes 


1 Destroyed a. D. 79; first discovered a. D. 1750. 


VOL. 11.—15 


pe 
226 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII 


and the rouge of faded beauty; and everywhere the bones 
and skeletons of those who once moved the springs of that 
minute yet gorgeous machine of luxury and of life! 

In the house of Diomed, in the subterranean vaults, twenty 
skeletons (one of a babe) were discovered in one spot by the 
door, covered by a fine ashen dust, that had evidently been 
wafted slowly through the apertures until it had filled the 
whole space. There were jewels and coins, candelabra for 
unavailing light, and wine hardened in the amphore for a 
prolongation of agonized life. The sand, consolidated by 
damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in a cast; 
and the traveller may yet see the impression of a female neck 
and bosom of young and round proportions, —the trace of the 
fated Julia! It seems to the inquirer as if the air had been 
gradually changed into a sulphurous vapor; the inmates of 
the vaults had rushed to the door, to find it closed and blocked 
up by the scoria without, and in their attempts to force it had 
been suffocated with the atmosphere. 

In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony 
hand, and near it a bag of coins. This is believed to have 
been the master of the house, — the unfortunate Diomed, who 
had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been de- 
stroyed either by the vapors or some fragment of stone. 
Beside some silver vases lay another skeleton, probably of a 
slave. 

The houses of Sallust and of Pansa, the Temple of Isis, with 
the juggling concealments behind the statues, —the lurking- 
place of its holy oracles,— are now bared to the gaze of the 
curious. In one of the chambers of that temple was found a 
huge skeleton with an axe beside it: two walls had been 
pierced by the axe; the victim could penetrate no farther. 
In the midst of the city was found another skeleton, by the 
side of which was a heap of coins, and many of the mystic 
ornaments of the fane of Isis. Death had fallen upon him 
in his avarice, and Calenus perished simultaneously with 
Burbo! As the excavators cleared on through the mass of 
ruin, they found the skeleton of a man literally severed in two 


1 See note (c) at the end. 


THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 227 


by a prostrate column; the skull was of so striking a confor- 
mation, so boldly marked in its intellectual as well as its 
worse physical developments, that it has excited the constant 
speculation of every itinerant believer in the theories of Spurz- 
heim, who has gazed upon that ruined palace of the mind. 
Still, after the lapse of ages, the traveller may survey that 
airy hall, within whose cunning galleries and elaborate cham- 
bers once thought, reasoned, dreamed, and sinned, the soul of 
Arbaces the Egyptian. 

Viewing the various witnesses of a social system which has 
passed from the world forever, —a stranger, from that remote 
barbarian Isle which the Imperial Roman shivered when he 
named, paused amidst the delights of the soft Campania and 
composed this history ! 


eer at BLS 
in Behe 
Tet ka Ps 


ie vag a oe A 
Mon DA 1 igak-y tak 
1a Sa ee Bip . 


; i hel fp 
Fie 6 
iy eT 


patie 7 
’ ir 


NOE CS: 


NOTES TO BOOK I. 


(a) p. 6. — “Flowers more alluring to the ancient Italians than to their 
descendants,” etc. 


The modern Italians, especially those of the more southern parts of Italy, 
have a peculiar horror of perfumes ; they consider them remarkably unwhole- 
some; and the Roman or Neapolitan lady requests her visitors not to use them. 
What is very strange, the nostril so susceptible of a perfume is wonderfully 
obtuse to its reverse. You may literally call Rome, “ Sentina Gentium,” — 
the sink of nations. 


(6) p. 27.—“ The sixth banqueter, who was the umbra of Clodius.” 


A very curious and interesting treatise might be written on the parasites of 
Greece and Rome. In the former, they were more degraded than in the latter 
country. The Hpuistles of Alciphron express, in a lively manner, the insults 
which they underwent for the sake of a dinner: one man complains that fish- 
sauce was thrown into his eyes, that he was beat on the head, and given to 
eat stones smeared with honey; while a courtesan threw at him a bladder 
filled with blood, which burst on his face and covered him with the stream. 
The manner in which these parasites repaid the hospitality of their hosts was, 
like that of modern diners-out, by witty jokes and amusing stories ; sometimes 
they indulged practical jokes on each other, “boxing one another’s ears.” 
The magistrates at Athens appear to have looked very sternly upon these 
humble buffoons, and they complain of stripes and a prison with no philosophi- 
cal resignation. In fact, the parasite seems at Athens to have answered the 
purpose of the fool of the Middle Ages; but he was far more worthless and 
perhaps more witty; the associate of courtesans, uniting the pimp with the 
buffoon. This is a character peculiar to Greece. The Latin comic writers 
made indeed prodigal use of the parasite; yet he appears at Rome to have 
held a somewhat higher rank, and to have met with a somewhat milder treat- 
ment, than at Athens. Nor do the delineations of Terence, which, in por- 
traying Athenian manners, probably soften down whatever would have been 
exaggerated to a Roman audience, present so degraded or so abandoned a 
character as the parasite of Alciphron and Atheneus. The more haughty and 
fastidious Romans often disdained indeed to admit such buffoons as compan- 


a 


230 NOTES. 


ions, and hired (as we may note in Pliny’s Epistles) fools or mountebanks, to 
entertain their guests and to supply the place of the Grecian parasite. When 
(be it observed) Clodius is styled parasite in the text, the reader must take 
the modern, not the ancient interpretation of the word. 

A very feeble, but very flattering reflex of a parasite was the umbra or 
shadow, who accompanied any invited guest, and who was sometimes a man 
of equal consequence, though usually a poor relative or an humble friend; 
in modern cant, ‘‘a toady.” Such is the umbra of our friend Clodius. ; 


(c) p. 830 —“ The dice in summer, and I an edile!” 


All games of chance were forbidden by law (“ Vetita legibus alea.” — Horat. 
Od. xxiv. 1,3), except “in Saturnalibus,”’ during the month of December; 
the ediles were charged with enforcing this law, which, like all laws against 
gaming, in all times, was wholly ineffectual. 


(d) p. 37.— “ The small but graceful temple consecrated to Isis.” 


Sylla is said to have transported to Italy the worship of the Egyptian Isis.! 
It soon became “ the rage,” and was peculiarly in vogue with the Roman ladies. 
Its priesthood were sworn to chastity, and, like all such brotherhoods, were 
noted for their licentiousness. Juvenal styles the priestesses by a name (Isiacze 
lenz) that denotes how convenient they were to lovers, and under the mantle 
of night many an amorous intrigue was carried on in the purlieus of the sacred 
temples. A lady vowed for so many nights to watch by the shrine of Isis: 
it was a sacrifice of continence towards her husband, to be bestowed on her 
lover! While one passion of human nature was thus appealed to, another 
scarcely less strong was also pressed into the service of the goddess, namely, 
Credulity. The priests of Isis arrogated a knowledge of magic and of the fu- 
ture. Among women of all classes, and among many of the harder sex, the 
Egyptian sorceries were consulted and revered as oracles. Voltaire, with much 
plausible ingenuity, endeavors to prove that the gypsies are a remnant of the 
ancient priests and priestesses of Isis, intermixed with those of the goddess of 
Syria. In the time of Apuleius these holy impostors had lost their dignity 
and importance ; despised and poor, they wandered from place to place selling 
prophecies and curing disorders ; and Voltaire shrewdly bids us remark that 
Apuleius has not forgot their peculiar skill in filching from outhouses and 
courtyards; afterwards they practised palmistry and singular dances (query, 
the Bohemian dances?). “ Such,” says the too-conclusive Frenchman, “such 
has been the end of the ancient religion of Isis and Osiris, whose very names 
still impress us with awe!” At the time in which my story is cast, the wor- 
ship of Isis was, however, in the highest repute; and the wealthy devotees 
sent even to the Nile, that they might sprinkle its mysterious waters over the 
altars of the goddess. I have introduced the ibis in the sketch of the temple 
of Isis, although it has been supposed that that bird languished and died when 


1 In the Campanian cities the trade with Alexandria was probably more effica- 
cious than the piety of Sylla (no very popular example, perhaps) in establishing 
the worship of the favorite deity of Egypt. 


NOTES. 231 


taken from Egypt. But from various reasons, too long now to enumerate, I 
incline to believe that the ibis was by no means unfrequent in the Italian tem- 
ples of Isis, though it rarely lived long, and refused to breed in a foreign 
climate. 


NOTE TO BOOK IL. 


(a) p. 144.—“ The marvels of Faustus are not comparable to those of 
Apollonius.” 


During the earlier ages of the Christian epoch, the heathen philosophy, es- 
pecially of Pythagoras and of Plato, had become debased and adulterated, not 
only by the wildest mysticism, but the most chimerical dreams of magic. 
Pythagoras, indeed, scarcely merited a nobler destiny; for though he was an 
exceedingly clever man, he was a most prodigious mountebank, and was 
exactly formed to be the great father of a school of magicians. Pythagoras 
himself either cultivated magic or arrogated its attributes, and his followers 
told marvellous tales of his writing on the moon’s disk, and appearing in sev- 
eral places at once. His golden rules and his golden thigh were in especial 
veneration in Magna Grecia, and out of his doctrines of occult numbers his 
followers extracted numbers of doctrines. The most remarkable of the later 
impostors who succeed him was Apollonius of Tyana, referred to in the text. 
All sorts of prodigies accompanied the birth of this gentleman. Proteus, the 
Egyptian god, foretold to his mother, yet pregnant, that it was he himself (Pro- 
teus) who was about to reappear in the world through her agency. After this, 
Proteus might well be considered to possess the power of transformation ! 
Apollonius knew the language of birds, read men’s thoughts in their bosoms, 
and walked about with a familiar spirit. He was a devil of a fellow witha 
devil, and induced a mob to stone a poor demon of venerable and mendicant 
appearance, who after the lapidary operation changed into a huge dog. He 
raised the dead, passed a night with Achilles, and, when Domitian was mur- 
dered, he called out aloud (though at Ephesus at the moment), “ Strike the 
tyrant!” The end of so honest and great a man was worthy his life. It 
would seem that he ascended into heaven. What less could be expected of 
one who had stoned the devil! Should any English writer meditate a new 
Faust, I recommend to him Apollonius. 

But the magicians of this sort were philosophers (!), excellent men and pious ; 
there were others of a far darker and deadlier knowledge, the followers of the 
Goetic magic ; in other words, the Black Art. Both of these, the Goetic and 
the Theurgic, seem to be of Egyptian origin ; and it is evident, at least, that 
their practitioners appeared to pride themselves on drawing their chief secrets 
from that ancient source, and both are intimately connected with astrology. 
In attributing to Arbaces the knowledge and the repute of magic, as well as 
that of the science of the stars, I am, therefore, perfectly in accordance with 
the spirit of his time and the circumstances of his birth. He is a character- 
istic of that age. At one time I purposed to have developed and detailed 
more than I have done the pretensions of Arbaces to the mastery of his art, 
and to have initiated the reader into the various sorceries of the period. But 


232 NOTES. 


as the character of the Egyptian grew upon me, I felt that it was necessary 
to be sparing of that machinery which, thanks to the march of knowledge, 
every one now may fancy he can detect. Such as he is, Arbaces is become 
too much of an intellectual creation to demand a frequent repetition of the 
coarser and more physical materials of terror. I suffered him, then, merely 
to demonstrate his capacities in the elementary and obvious secrets of his 
craft, and leave the subtler magic he possesses to rest in mystery and shadow. 

As to the Witch of Vesuvius, her spells and her philtres, her cavern and 
its appliances, however familiar to us of the North, are faithful also to her 
time and nation. A witch of a lighter character, and manners less ascetic 
the learned reader will remember with delight in the Golden Ass of Apuleius ; 
and the reader who is not learned is recommended to the spirited translations 
of that enchanting romance by Taylor. 


NOTE TO BOOK Iii. 


(a) p. 163 —“ The influence of the evil eye.” 


This superstition, to which I have more than once alluded throughout this 
work, still flourishes in Magna Grecia, with scarcely diminished vigor. I 
remember conversing at Naples with a lady of the highest rank, and of intel- 
lect and information very uncommon amongst the noble Italians of either sex, 
when I suddenly observed her change color, and make a rapid and singular 
motion with her finger. “ My God, that man!” she whispered, tremblingly. 

“ What man ?” 

“ See! the Count ——! he has just entered!” 

“He ought to be much flattered to cause such emotion; doubtless he has 
been one of the Signora’s admirers ? ” 

“ Admirer! Heaven forbid. He has the evil eye! His look fell full upon 
me. Something dreadful will certainly happen.” 

“T see nothing remarkable in his eyes.” 

‘‘So much the worse. The danger is greater for being disguised. Heisa 
terrible man. The last time he looked upon my husband, it was at cards, and 
he lost half his income at a sitting; his ill-luck was miraculous. The Count 
met my little boy in the gardens, and the poor child broke his arm that even- 
ing. Oh! what shallldo? Something dreadful will certainly happen; and, 
heavens! he is admiring my cap!” 

“ Does every one find the eyes of the Count equally fatal, and his admiration 
equally exciting ? ” 

“Every one — he is universally dreaded ; and, what is very strange, he is 
so angry if he sees you avoid him!” 

“That is very strange indeed, — the wretch!” 

At Naples the superstition works well for the jewellers, —so many charms 
and talismans as they sell for the ominous fascination of the mal-occhio! In 
Pompeii the talismans were equally numerous, but not always of so elegant a 
shape, nor of so decorous a character. But, generally speaking, a coral orna- 
ment was, as it now is, among the favorite averters of the evil influence. The 
Thebans about Pontus were supposed to have an hereditary claim to this 


NOTES. 233 


charming attribute, and could even kill grown-up men with a glance. As for 
Africa, where the belief also still exists, certain families could not only destroy 
children, but wither up trees: they did this, not with curses but praises. The 
malus oculus was not always different from the eyes of other people. But 
persons, especially of the fairer sex, with double pupils to the organ, were 
above all to be shunned and dreaded. The Ilyrians were said to possess this 
fatal deformity. In all countries, even in the North, the eye has ever been 
held the chief seat of fascination; but now-a-days, ladies with a single pupil 
manage the work of destruction pretty easily. So much do we improve upon 
our forefathers! 


NOTE TO BOOK IV. 
(a) p. 376. 
“ We care not for gods up above us, — 
We know there ’s no god for this earth, boys!” 


The doctrines of Epicurus himself are pure and simple. Far from denying 
the existence of diviner powers, Velleius (the defender and explainer of his 
philosophy in Cicero’s dialogue on the nature of the gods) asserts “that Epi- 
curus was the first who saw that there were gods, from the impression which 
Nature herself makes on the minds of all men.” He imagined the belief of 
the Deity to be an innate or antecedent notion (mpéAnyis) of the mind,—a 
doctrine of which modern metaphysicians (certainly not Epicureans) have 
largely availed themselves! He believed that worship was due to the divine 
powers from the veneration which felicity and excellence command, and not 
from any dread of their vengeance or awe of their power: a sublime and 
fearless philosophy, suitable perhaps to half a dozen great and refined spirits, 
but which would present no check to the passions of the mass of mankind. 
According to him, the gods were far too agreeably employed in contemplating 
their own happiness to trovble their heads about the sorrows and the joys, the 
quarrels and the cares, the petty and transitory affairs of man. Yor this earth 
they were unsympathizing abstractions :— 


“Wrapt up in majesty divine, 
Can they regard on what we dine!” 


Cotta, who, in the dialogue referred to, attacks the philosophy of Epicurus 
with great pleasantry, and considerable, though not uniform, success, draws 
the evident and practical corollary from the theory that asserts the non-inter- 
ference of the gods. “How,” says he, “can there be sanctity, if the gods 
regard not human affairs? Ifthe Deity show no benevolence to man, let us 
dismiss Him at once. Why should I entreat Him to be propitious? He can- 
not be propitious, — since, according to you, favor and benevolence are only 
the effects of imbecility.” Cotta, indeed, quotes from Posidonius (De Naturéd 
Deorum), to prove that Epicurus did not really believe in the existence of 
a God; but that his concession of a being wholly nugatory was merely a pre- 
caution against accusations of atheism. “ Epicurus could not be such a fool,” 
says Cotta, “as sincerely to believe that a Deity has the members of a man 
without the power to use them, — a thin pellucidity, regarding no one and doing 


234 NOTES. 


nothing.” And, whether this be true or false concerning Epicurus, it is cer- 
tain that, to all effects and purposes, his later disciples were but refining 
atheists. The sentiments uttered in the song in the text are precisely those 
professed in sober prose by the graceful philosophers of the garden, who, as 
they had wholly perverted the morals of Epicurus, which are at once pure 
and practical, found it a much easier task to corrupt his metaphysics, which 
are equally dangerous and visionary. 


NOTES TO BOOK V. 


(a) p. 430. — “ Rivers of the molten lava.” 


Various theories as to the exact mode by which Pompeii was destroyed 
have been invented by the ingenious. I have adopted that which is the most 
generally received, and which, upon inspecting the strata, appears the only 
one admissible by common sense; namely, a destruction by showers of ashes 
and boiling water, mingled with frequent irruptions of large stones, and aided 
by partial convulsions of the earth. Herculaneum, on the contrary, appears 
to have received not only the showers of ashes, but also inundations from 
molten lava; and the streams referred to in the text must be considered as 
destined for that city rather than for Pompeii. The volcanic lightnings intro- 
duced in my description were evidently among the engines of ruin at Pompeii. 
Papyrus and other of the more inflammable materials are found in a burnt 
state. Some substances in metal are partially melted; and a bronze statue is 
completely shivered, as by lightning. Upon the whole (excepting only the 
inevitable poetic license of shortening the time which the destruction occu- 
pied), I believe my description of that awful event is very little assisted by 
invention, and will be found not the less accurate for its appearance in a 
Romance. 


(d) p. 439. — “ A love that has taken a new sentiment in our new creed.” 


What we now term and feel to be sentiment in love was very little known 
amongst the ancients, and at this day is scarcely acknowledged out of Chris- 
tendom. It is a feeling intimately connected with, not a belief, but a convic- 
tion, that the passion is of the soul, and, like the soul, immortal. Chateau- 
briand, in that work so full both of error and of truth, his essay on The 
Genius of Christianity, has referred to this sentiment with his usual eloquence, 
It makes, indeed, the great distinction between the amatory poetry of the 
moderns and that of the ancients. And I have thought that I might, with 
some consonance to truth and nature, attribute the consciousness of this 
sentiment to Glaucus after his conversion to Christianity, though he is only 
able vaguely to guess at, rather than thoroughly to explain, its cause. 


(c) p. 441. — “ And everywhere the bones and skeletons of those who once 
moved the springs of that minute yet gorgeous machine of luxury and of 
life!” 

At present (1834) there have been about three hundred and fifty or four 
hundred skeletons discovered in Pompeii; but as a great part of the city is 


NOTES. 235 


yet to be disinterred, we can scarcely calculate the number of those who 
perished in the destruction. Still, however, we have every reason to conclude 
that they were very few in proportion to those who escaped. The ashes had 
been evidently cleared away from many of the houses, no doubt for the pur- 
pose of recovering whatever treasures had been left behind. The mansion of 
our friend Sallust is one of those thus revisited. ‘The skeletons which, re- 
animated for a while, the reader has seen play their brief parts upon the stage, 
under the names of Burbo, Calenus, Diomed, Julia, and Arbaces, were found 
exactly as described in the text. May they have been reanimated more 
successfully for the pleasure of the reader than they have been for the solace 
of the author, who has vainly endeavored, in the work which he now con- 
cludes, to beguile the most painful, gloomy, and despondent period of a life, 
in the web of which has been woven less of white than the world may deem! 
But like most other friends, the Imagination is capricious, and forsakes us 
often at the moment in which we most need its aid. As we grow older, we 
begin to learn that, of the two, our more faithful and steadfast comforter is — 
Custom. But I should apologize for this sudden and unseasonable indulgence 
of a momentary weakness it is but for a moment. With returning health 
returns also that energy without which the soul were given us in vain, and 
which enables us calmly to face the evils of our being and resolutely to fulfil 
its objects. There is but one philosophy (though there area thousand schools), 
and its name is Fortitude. 


“TO BEAR IS TO CONQUER OUR FATE!” 


THE END. 


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